


Bless Our Bloody Swords with Grace

by chapstickaddict



Series: Prayer for the Unlikely [2]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Encyclopedia Britannica, Explosions!, F/M, Gen, I finally learned out to do the “é” thing on my computer and not just copy/paste, Other, Rule 63, and my college european history text books, but he’s not the main character of this story, flagrant abuse of wikipedia, he is a puppy though, i love d’artagnan, ladies being awesome, often they fight, papa bear!Tréville, sometimes ladies love, sometimes they argue, tw: backlash for women in power, tw: mentions of emotional and physical abuse, tw: undiagnosed alcoholism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2164551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chapstickaddict/pseuds/chapstickaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Continuing Prompt: The Musketeers are all openly female. King Louis is amused by the concept of a female guard, and once they've proven themselves all to be extremely competent, he allows it.</i>
</p><p>Aramis leaned over and flicked a gold dusted fingernail against d'Artagnan's forehead.</p><p>"We told you, silly goose. We're your sisters, not your ladies." They were the queen's own, Tréville's daughters, and ladies of the Musketeers, but to d'Artagnan they were nothing so entrenched in imagery and devotion. Apparently he had not pieced that all together yet. Aramis could wait, but she would be the first to claim patience was not one of her virtues.</p><p>*<br/>In which our ladies go up against old friends, new enemies, plenty of crazy people, and, on occasion, each other. They know they lead odd lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Slight of Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, here we go. 
> 
> Canon Disclaimer:  
> I am following the series’ structure and episodes in most things, but I do take a lot of liberties with the way the story gets there. Subplots may be downplayed or completely omitted, depending on my mood, certain character arcs may come sooner/later then they did in cannon. There are some moments the series emphasized that i’m going to gloss over because...well because you’ve all seen it. You know what’s important :) 
> 
> TW Disclaimer:  
> The nature of the ladies’ lives puts them in contact with individuals in situations who attempt to physically or emotionally abuse them in order to gain an upper hand. I use attempted, because let’s be real these ladies could set the world on fire if they wanted to. But soldiers live violent lives, and casual slurs/threats of force are often employed. If this is an issue for you please tread lightly.

When the others approached him, d’Artagnan refused to acknowledge the swell of nerves in his stomach. He may not have the title of a Musketeer, but Athos, Aramis, and Porthos continued to drag him around like one day after day. He knew they were only waiting for an excuse to shove him before the King and have done with it. But that did not keep apprehension from striking as Bélanger, one of Tréville’s lieutenants, and two other Musketeers d'Artagnan did not recognize cornered him outside the training yard one evening.

“Our ladies took a liking to you,” Bélanger remarked with a cheerful smile. He leaned one shoulder against the wall at d’Artagnan’s back. On the surface, the gesture felt like companionship, but d’Artagnan realized it also blocked their conversation from the rest of the courtyard. The two unknowns settled in behind him. They stood with casual ease but it was clear their purpose was to barricade him further.

“Have they now?” d’Artagnan muttered. Aramis had spent the afternoon walking her rapier up and down d’Artagnan’s torso with far too much enthusiasm for his liking. From the sidelines, Athos called out advice and criticisms on his form. Porthos called out suggestions to Aramis. ‘A liking to him’ seemed to have an odd meaning. 

d’Artagnan would admit he loved every moment of it. He always believed his father to be a skilled swordsmith who taught d’Artagnan everything he needed to know. However, after just days under Athos’ tutelage it was clear there was much more to learn. Bélanger did not need to know that. His father also raised him to be wary of the wild. And for as beautifully untamed as the ladies of the Musketeers were, the men proved to be wild indeed. It seemed Tréville preferred his troops just shy of bloodthirsty.

As if in confirmation of his thoughts, Bélanger flashed him a smile that would not have looked out of place on a wolf.

“They like you,” he affirmed. “I know what their displeasure looks like. And I can see why. You’re quick on your feet and you know how to take a punch. I’d be willing to bet a few sous you know when to play dirty, too.”

“I was raised to fight like a gentlemen.” Porthos had laughed in his face when he told her that. Bélanger raised his hands in a friendly gesture of solidarity.

“As was I,” he agreed. “But there’s a time and a place for that kind of behavior. I do wonder though, if you know subtlety.”

“I’m familiar with, but I can’t say I’m skilled,” d’Artagnan replied. “Please get to the point of all this. I don’t have time for word plays."

There was that wolfish grin again. d’Artagnan was expecting some heavy-handed threat to stay away from the ladies and run for the hills with all due haste. (He had charmed enough girls with watchful brothers to know the look of this.) But what he received instead was an offer. The name Vadim meant nothing to him, but the rapid light in Bélanger’s eyes told him the man meant enough for them to ask an outsider for help.

“You want me to what?”

“Come now, laddie,” one of the unknown Musketeers said behind him. Michel, d’Artagnan thought his name was. “You know there’s more to being a Musketeer than saber-rattling.”

“But surely you have more experienced men to take on such a clandestine affair.”

“And your inexperience is exactly why I thought of you,” Bélanger explained with all seriousness. “We Musketeers have a certain…air about us, we’ve been told. Apparently we’re rather easy to spot.”

If by that, he meant that all Musketeers were as mad as March hares and twice as lucky, d’Artagnan did have to agree. Even such a short time in their company had proven that. But to lie with his life on the line...

The sensible side of d’Artagnan pointed out all the ways Bélanger’s proposed plan could go wrong. The driven side of him could taste the rush of an adventure on his tongue.

“We know he means to hurt people,” the second unknown Musketeer explained. “And perhaps even assassinate the king."

“What do you need me to do?” d’Artagnan decided before he could think better of it.

Bélanger outlined a plan that put him in the same cell as Vadim to see what information he could garner. They would watch him from the shadows, but he would be given leave to act in a manner that convinced Vadim that he was nothing more than an out-of-luck dueler.

“Finally, you must not tell anyone of this,” Bélanger warned. “Most importantly the ladies.”

d’Artagnan could not see his own face, but he liked to think his expression outlined his disproval.

“You mean to keep them in the dark?” he demanded. Immediately, he knew that to be a foolish idea. Even if Athos did not notice everything around her, Porthos was bound to pick up on something that caught her attention. And Aramis seemed to have an innate awareness of secret plots growing around her. 

“If you do this they’ll want to be there for it,” Bélanger explained, leaning in closer to bring his presence to bare on d’Artagnan. “Even if this goes right, they'll pursue us all. And the Red Guards hate our ladies more than the rest of us—they’re not subtle about it. Our ladies have embarrassed them too much. The Red Guard may chase them even over you. Now take a moment, because I want you to imagine one of them locked up in the Bastille, and the type of hell they’re sure to be subjected to there.”

d’Artagnan took that moment and thought. None of those thoughts ended in pleasantly.

“And if this is to work, Tréville will have to punish us,” Maybe Michel continued. “He wouldn’t be able to do that to the ladies. It wouldn’t be a punishment, it’d be a damning if he turned the rest of the regiment on them, even for a few days. Better they not know until after you’re in with Vadim."

d’Artagnan already felt horrible about that part of the affair, but not horrible enough to turn the offer away. A chance to prove himself and to show everyone who thought him too young and too green to handle the challenge, was overwhelming. He agreed to the plan in the shadows of the courtyard, shaking hands with Bélanger and sealing his fate.

The duel had been brief, and he had been too busy running away to see Bélanger and his comrades sally off.

Once caught, the guards threw him into a dank cell and told him not to make trouble, or else. The threat of submission through brutality hung heavy in the air. As he made himself comfortable, d’Artagnan used that to justify the continued tinge of guilt in his stomach. His conscious railed against his actions, kicking him for not telling the ladies what he was doing. They watched out for him, they would be able to handle this...they where Musketeers after all.

But Bélanger was right. The guards at the Bastile proved to have wondering gazes and harsh hands, and using their superior position to corrupt ends. The prisoners were worse. Many shouted suggestions and lewd comments his way, some out of boredom, some out of twisted amusement, and even a few out of a sick desire. d’Artagnan tried to imagine what would have happened to any of the ladies had they ended up in this place.

Athos would use her silence and her dismissal as a weapon. She would not let one so much as speak to her, a voice in the corner of his thoughts whispered back. It sounded remarkably like Constance. That small cell would be a kingdom to Athos, and one where foreign visitors were never welcome. Aramis would shame and ridicule them, then turn them on each other before they turned on her. Every interaction she instigated would be a battle, with a winner triumphant and a loser humiliated. Porthos would meet them shot for shot and beat them down for daring to defy her. This place would not cow her. She knew what monsters looked like and these men were not it.

d’Artagnan shook that off. Bélanger had been right—on the streets of Paris the ladies of the Musketeers were formidable. But in this tiny corner of the world it was too dangerous. He had a job to do, now that he had gotten there. What was done, was done and he would answer for it later.

* 

While she watched Tréville dress down Bélanger and his crew for their elicit dueling before all and Christ, Athos could not help the wave of skepticism that overtook her. She did not mention her feelings to her sisters, but it lingered with her in a hovering mix of hunch and mistrust. Porthos kept her fingers busy picking apart a piece of bread from the common table and looked disgruntled. Aramis was on her other side, perched on the tabletop with her feet resting on the bench, and she nudged Porthos with her knee.

“Try not to look so murderous, my lovely.”

“They left him to the Red Guards,” Porthos growled. Athos winced at the volume of her sister’s voice as an early morning headache bounced between her temples. Her mouth still nursed the stale taste of cheap wine, and the sun stung her eyes with its harsh glare. She snatched a small piece of bread from Porthos’ fingers to settle her stomach and tried to ignore her own body.

“I’d feel more sympathetic had the poor puppy told us what he’d been up to,” Aramis shot back. “He should’ve known better. Though I do believe I’m annoyed at Bélanger now. We should think of something horrible for his punishment.” She grinned down at Porthos. “Maybe make him go a few rounds with us—it’s been an age since we put some scars on him."

Porthos smiled, but Athos could see the worry around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. And she was not the only one. The rest of the Musketeers groused that they had left d’Artagnan to the clutches of the Cardinal’s guards, because while the boy was green, he already showed the courage of a Musketeer. Athos agreed with Aramis about thrashing the lot of Bélanger’s crew in lessons, but the nagging feeling lingered in her nostrils like a distasteful odor she could not be rid of. As Tréville dismissed them all in disgust, Athos’ mouth flew into action before her mind thought better of it.

“Bélanger!” she called out, earning startled looks from her sisters and a hard throb from her head. The other lieutenant jerked at her call. His features were set in a foreboding grimace just before a mask of bland indifference slide over him. Strolling through the dispersing crowd, he nodded to them in greeting as he approached.

“Ladies."

“The man d’Artagnan was dueling, who was he?” Athos asked without preamble. Politeness was for civilized hours of the day, not an hour after dawn. 

“Couldn’t really tell you,” he replied. He smiled a charming smile at her, and Athos met it with a stern glare. Bélanger often tried to charm his way out of her bad graces with playful teasing and easy smiles, and it reminded her too much of André for comfort. “He asked me to second for him, what with the other man bringing along a few friends.”

“Why were they dueling?”

“Your puppy mentioned a slight to his honor, or some such nonsense.” Bélanger, son of an inn keeper just outside Paris, had a commoner’s casual distain for noble behavior. He was an odd choice for a second for that alone.

“Did you know who suggested the location?” The chilly copse of trees beyond the old city walls was a traditional dueling ground in times past. The Red Guard monitored it with a close eye since the King's proclamation against it.

“Haven’t the slightest, I'm afraid.” There was a hint of a challenge in Bélanger’s eyes, as if daring her to doubt his word. Unsatisfied with his answers but with no way of wringing a different story from him, she dismissed him altogether. With a sigh, she ran her fingers through her shortened hair while her thoughts slid against each other. She still sometimes marveled at the feeling of weightlessness it brought her, after so many years of it trailing down her back.

“What are you thinking, my dove?” Aramis asked, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She looked no more awake than Athos at this early hour. Though she still managed to look beautiful despite it. Her hair tumbled down around her in artful dishevelment and her face was still relaxed from sleep. Her movements were soft and lackadaisical.

“I don’t know yet.” Her habit of jumping from one conclusion to the next without explaining herself sometimes irked Aramis and Porthos. Often she simply did not have the time or energy to explain her reasoning. Easier to fill her sisters in on her conclusions without littering the way with her logic. 

And Athos knew she was a suspicious bitch. It had been one of the things André told her he loved most about her. She never knew if she should take that as a complement. However, since her mind already saw misgivings at every turn, she learned she was more comfortable with it than without nowadays. 

She tried to pick through the muddled tangle of ideas she wove, but her headache was fierce and nothing made any sense over the pain. Why would d’Artagnan not tell them about a duel? And why was he dueling in the first place? Why was Bélanger involved with a greenhorn? 

She did try to banish the entire matter from her thoughts, she felt the need to point out to herself. It was obvious something was going on, what with Bélanger’s behavior and Tréville avoiding them and d’Artagnan not telling them about a duel that his reckless, bloodthirsty, only slightly crazed sisters would have met with gleeful approval. Too many things did not make sense, and Athos hated things that did not make sense. It led to things she could not predict, and that left she and her sisters open to danger.

Despite her best attempts, her suspicions later intensified during the Queen’s pardon. Throughout the years, the Bastille had become a point of contention between they and Tréville. In all other things, he made no issue of their involvement, and even encouraged them to follow their instincts. But he still refused to let any of them within sight of the lumbering prison. Nothing she or her sisters said could change his mind, and he had gone as far as removing them from missions to keep them away from it.

“I make no challenge of your skills,” he told her after he sent a disgruntled Porthos and a raging Aramis away during one such incident. Athos had been furious as well, but she knew displaying it would not get her what she wanted. And at the time she wanted an explanation. “You know this. But it’s the one place in Paris where I can’t protect you. I hesitate to send any Musketeer there. We’ve placed many in that cursed place, and if any of you were to end up in its depths, there’d be nothing I could bargain with them for you. Vengefulness is a hard thing to overcome. Do you understand what they would do to you and your sisters, merely because of who you are?”

The entire situation railed against Athos, yet realities were what they were and she understood Tréville’s apprehension at any of them near such a deprived place. But she did think he was being paranoid. There had been no break out from the Bastille in recent memory, and many considered the guards to be at their best.

Tréville’s one concession toward the Bastille was during the Queen’s annual pardon. Athos knew it was only because Her Majesty became so accustomed to the presence of she and her sisters that she endlessly needled Tréville if they were not brought along. And their captain hated to be needled. Even so, he usually invited himself along each year, if only to watch over them all.

As the queen intoned her king's blessed pardon upon a lucky few, Athos touched Porthos’ elbow to get her attention.

“I’m going to check on d’Artagnan,” she muttered. Something still gnawed at her, and she suspected their new puppy would not be as taciturn as Bélanger had earlier proven to be.

Porthos shot her a look but nodded. “Be careful.”

Athos did not roll her eyes, but it was a close thing. Later, she would believe fate took that as a sign of disrespect and had proceeded to punish her for it.

She made it to in a small courtyard when the rumbling started. Instinct alone put her pistol in her hand just as the door burst open and men dressed in rags and rage streamed out of the entryway. She shouted the alarm as the first one reached her. He fell to a lead ball she shot into his chest, but even as she put him down she knew she could not take them all.

Drawing her rapier she cut two more down, but the third, blessed with a long reach, managed to get inside her guard and slam her against the stone wall. Her rapier clattered to the ground as her body went numb from the impact. She fought to breath as he loomed over her, pressing her into the jagged rock.

“Girlie Musketeer, huh? Heard about you. Know the guards talk about fucking you raw? Maybe I should save ‘em the trouble.”

Athos knew she was a skilled with a blade. She also liked to think she was an honorable fighter with the proper rights and respects given. Then Porthos once managed to get her sword away from her in a series of dirty tricks and showed her how foolish a concept an honorable fight was. By the time she won the upper hand on her sister, Aramis had stepped in to reinforce the point. They took turns on her until Athos learned to blend her painstakingly perfected swordsmanship with a fierce right hook and extensive knowledge of the more sensitive areas on a man’s body. 

“Ah!”

She lashed out with that instinct, and a harsh blow to his nose combined with a knee to his groin put him on his knees while her vision reentered itself. She drove the heel of her boot into his face, and when she stepped away he did not get back up. She tried to run to a defensible position, but a thick hand grabbed her jacket and drug her into the rushing mass of bodies. She fought to put her back to a wall again, knowing if they got her into the prison itself she may never get out. She did not have Porthos’ skill in close quarters, but she did her best to compensate for that with pure ruthlessness. Her rapier still lay in the dirt some ways away, but she had use of her knife and she used it to target fingers, noses, ears and eyes until she felt the press of cold, wet brink behind her.

The relief of that was short lived. She survived because many prisoners were more concerned with running to freedom than grappling with her. The ones more interested in a fight tried to take her on by themselves, and she managed to best them quickly. But when she saw three prisoners trade looks and form up around her, Athos knew she was in trouble. She kicked out at the first one and sent him far enough back to stumble into another clump of prisoners fleeing the Bastille’s loving embrace. But the other two came rushing toward her in unison, fists swinging and eyes cloudy with thoughtless violence.

Her world spun as they all collided against the wall and she sunk her knife into the first piece of flesh she came into contact with. The prisoner she hit howled and backhanded her hard enough to put dark spots across her vision. Spitting around a sudden mouthful of blood, Athos tried to wretch her knife free but was met with heavy resistance. She had sunk the blade into bone, and did not have the leverage to pull it free. She felt the second one, pushed deep into her side, groping at her waist, and snarled at him. Weather he aimed to get at heavy buckle of her jacket or in search of anything left in her holsters she did not know, but his hand had no business being there. She aimed a hard kick at his knees, and was filled with grim satisfaction when he yelped and jerked away from her.

She tried to make another break for the staircase, but the third was back on his feet and pushing forward again. He was a giant, with thick arms that swung in practiced movements and Athos knew if he got his hands on her she was done for. She fought to get away, but there were too many hand keeping her back. She braced herself as the giant loomed, waiting for the blow that could break her. 

But it never came, as the giant reared back and clutched at his chest. His face was slack and his torso slowly blossomed with wet, bright red blood as he toppled to the side. Athos bit into someone’s ear and landed a punch to another, clearing enough room back to see past them to the far off staircase. 

At the top of the structure, Aramis was half over the balcony rail, her hands in quick motion as she traded an empty pistol for a full one at her waist. Her maroon corset and loose blue shirt were a beacon of color against the stark gray of the wall, giving Athos’ hazy vision a point to focus on. She called to Athos as she leaned over the balcony again, sighting down the barrel of another pistol.

Athos struck another prisoner who made to grab her, taking full advantage of his surprise at her strength to bring him down before making another run for the stairs, slowing only to collect her rapier from where it still lay on the ground. It was sheer luck she made it without capture, and then Porthos appeared before her. Aramis often called their towering sister a goddess when she fought, and in that moment Athos fully saw what she meant, as she watched Porthos cut through a handful of prisoners with brutal efficiency to get to her. Her body was grace in motion as she ripped them apart. 

Athos did not fight back when warm, familiar hands grabbed her. While the hands of the prisoners had made her feel rage and fear, these only invoked protection, and she could not help but lean into them as they pulled her forward. She made no issue of being thrown up the stairs onto higher (and relatively safer) ground, and as she passed she saw Aramis, hair flying out of the sloppy braid she had woven it into earlier that morning and numerous stolen, empty pistols littering her feet, take a kill shot at a prisoner waving a thick truncheon at Porthos.

Tossing that pistol aside with the others, Aramis leaned over and plucked Athos’ out of its holster while she was busy sending another prisoner tumbling down the stone stairs. 

“I want that one back!” Athos yelled over her shoulder.

“Let’s get out alive first!” Aramis bargained. Athos did not watch her aim, but the explosion of gunpowder and a strangled grunt told her Aramis had hit her mark.

Porthos was quick on their heels as she bound up the stairs, and Athos managed pull them all into the main courtyard as the fighting became overwhelming. With Aramis now out of loaded pistols, close combat was inevitable and she wanted the other Musketeers behind her for that. The prison break appeared to have affected multiple cells and was still in progress, if the flood of the Bastille’s worst inmates fought for escape.

In the main courtyard, Tréville was quick to pull them into the folds of the Musketeers circled around the queen. His expression told Athos he would have words for them all later. He shouted out commands as they worked to restore order and armed professional united against a rag-tag gang proved to be more fictive than Athos had been against a mob.

But even with that, a pistol still ended up pointed at the queen, tarnished steel pressed against her pale brow as a rough looking inmate shouted for them to get back. Athos did not recognize the assailant, but she was stunned to see a familiar figure behind them.

“The hell?” Porthos demanded, eyes wide with disbelief as d’Artagnan helped dispatch an unfortunate guard. Athos could say nothing in reply, her mouth stone dry and her blood cold in her veins. What did that little fool think he was doing? Anyone threatening the queen, who protected and sheltered she and her sisters against the cruel world, was an enemy no matter the circumstances. But d'Artagnan stood with an enemy...

Athos had no time to rationalize d'Artagnan's motives as the queen was thrown forward and fighting recommenced around her with gusto. She saw Aramis dive for Her Majesty, curling around her person to protect her against trampling feet and shattering explosions. Musket balls flew in all directions, some hitting prisoners, some Musketeers, and most hitting the thick walls.

Athos gutted any who came near her, and fought hard to put Aramis and Porthos at her back. The actions of some may baffle her, but she could always hold true in the simple defense of her silly, sometimes irrationally aggressive sisters. As it was she had to yank Porthos back from chasing a particularly filthy vagrant into the Paris gutters.

In the end, far too many of the prisoners escaped. That included d’Artagnan.

Athos returned to Aramis, who was still curled around the queen. She was muttering softly to her as Her Majesty buried her face in the worn leather of Aramis’ long jacket. Porthos knelt beside them, brushing the bits of debris off them both with care. The left cuff of her new jacket was already stained red and her fingers were shiny where blood had run down her arm and to pool in her palm. Athos tapped at her arm with gentle fingers, her eyes questioning when Porthos turned to her. Her sister smiled with faint enthusiasm.

“Just another scar,” she said, flexing her fingers as if to prove herself fit.

Athos let out a soft grunt in reply and shifted herself to block off the open angle between them. It gave their queen a moment's solitude before the world demanded her.

"Is it always that loud?" Anne asked, her words muffled and hidden under Aramis' soft soothing.

"Aye, it can be," Porthos explained. Athos remembered a time she would never speak in Anne's presence. She had been too afraid of letting her tongue run away with her thoughts and ruining them all. "Other times 's so distant you don't realize it 'til it's over."

Anne shuttered in Aramis' arms. Then, shielded by the three of them, proceeded to pull herself together. No one pulled themselves together like the queen did, Athos thought. Her face made no notable change and she kept the serene expression perfected by the pressures of her station. But in the space of a breath, her eyes hardened into diamonds and her spine became steel.

Athos offered a hand to help the queen rise while Porthos lent her good shoulder to keep her steady. Aramis, more conscious than they about appearances, subtly tugged the queen's heavy damask skirts back into order. By the time Anne of Austria rose to her feet, she had become her Most Christian Majesty, Queen Consort Anne of France and Navarre, Infanta of Spain and Portugal.

"Captain Tréville, do please bring me the captain of guard. I wish to have words with him," she commanded, her voice icy. Tréville reported immediately to her side, and something in Athos’ mind sparked. 

Aramis tugged at her arm, and her feet obediently followed her sisters into the looming shadow of the Bastille. Once there, her sister wasted no time in taking her jaw in her own slender fingers and turning her bruised cheek and bleeding lip into the dim light.

“That’s going to stay around for a while, my dove. Anything else to tell me about?”

Athos' head was still pounding from her morning headache. Her body hurt from being slammed against the stone of the Bastille’s thick walls. She wanted her knife back from where it rested in some convict’s shoulder. She was frustrated and suspicious and worried all in one, and she hated it when people she trusted to guard her back decided to lie to her. She told Aramis as much, practically snarling by the end.

Aramis, lovely and unruffled in the face of her irritation, pressed a light kiss to her bruised cheek and smiled at her like she was the sun. Her hands pressed against her torso to check for any dangerous shifting around her ribs. Against all logic, Athos felt far better than she had a moment ago.

“We can go get your knife soon, darling,” she assured as she finished. Seemingly satisfied none of Athos’ bones were at risk of piercing her lungs, she turned to their third. “Once I figure out why Porthos decided to ruin her new jacket so soon."

“One of 'em found themselves a bottle,” Porthos explained as Aramis fussed over the cut across her arm. It was bleeding sluggishly and looked shallow enough, most of the blow absorbed by the thick leather.

“Constance’s work held up well,” Athos noticed. “She’ll be cross, though. She wants to go more than a week without having to stitch your clothes back together.”

Porthos grinned at her, keeping still as Aramis finished a quick inspect of the rest of her person. “She ain’t allowed to complain with how well I pay 'er for it. Stop,” she ordered Aramis, who had decided to poke around her legs. A mission six months ago involving a group of smuggles had blessed Porthos was a twisted knee that still gave her trouble from time to time.

“Stop favoring it and I’ll stop being concerned,” Aramis replied as she straightened. “You don't need stitching, but I want to wrap it when we get back to the garrison.”

“Fine. And you?” Porthos asked, looking at her with frank expectation. Their vibrant sister had lied to them in the past about her wounds when she became more focused about theirs. Aramis waved a hand to indicate her own torso.

“A nice line of bruises from dangling myself over the balcony, but nothing else,” she reported and Athos could see no wound or strain to refute her.

Their odd ritual done, Athos let her anger simmer anew. She pressed her fingers into her forehead while she thought, struggling to put the scattered pieces before her together behind the pulsing of her skull. Porthos had a better grasp on how events could escalate and grow into different outcomes than she did. Aramis could decipher behaviors and motives before Athos could even realize they were a factor. But neither of them could see the curious little clues that she found so easy to notice and to collect. It just took her longer to piece them into a coherent argument.

Tréville despised being summoned to heel like a dog, even by the king and queen. But he had all but run for the queen, because he was avoiding something else. Avoiding them. He only avoided them when they asked questions he did not wish to answer. Questions, in this case, about a young pup who was probably too far in over his head. God knew, Thomas always managed the same with little enough provocation. d'Artagnan would be no different if given half a chance.

The whirling cloud of suspicion settled into belief within Athos.

"I believe there is more to this venture than meets the eye," she started as she worked towards a bigger picture. "And our dear brothers know more then they'd like to tell us."

“Could be another conversation with Bélanger 's in order,” Porthos growled. She rolled her shoulders under the studs across her collar; an embellishment Constance seemed to have enjoyed adding.

“I have another idea,” Aramis offered slowly, her eyes distance with thought. They were fast falling into her realm. “Michel’s not going to like it, though.”

“At this juncture, I don't particularly care." 

*

Cornering Michel was sadly simple. Once the regiment broke off to search of the escaped prisoners, it became a matter of stalking down Michel’s section and herding him away from the others. Athos gave the reins over to Porthos for that part. Her upbringing amongst the busy Parisian streets gifted her the ability of shifting crowds so that a target went where she willed. She had taught many Musketeers how to avoid the trick if they stayed alert, however Michel became distracted by any pretty woman to pass his shadow. Many times, he forced them to a stop while his attention wondered. Had Athos not had other things on her mind, she would have dressed him down for that alone.

Michel became aware of the danger he was in when he found himself facing the dead end of an alley, and turned to them with a tentative smile.

“Ladies,” he nodded at them respectfully. Over time, Athos grew used to the unusual mix of protective consideration and exasperated fondness most of the Musketeers addressed them with. They were adored for their skills, but many of their men had no idea how to speak to a woman who they were not aiming to bed or charm for favor. It gave she and her sisters a hold over them since there was little they were denied, but she also knew there were limits to what a man raised in a soldier's life would accept, no matter who’s mouth it came out of.

Aramis knew all this as well. Athos knew her sister did not care and played by her own rules.

“You’re going to tell me what d’Artagnan is up to,” Aramis ordered Michel, making no effort at subtlety. Athos was surprised by that. Aramis did not think in straight lines.

“I have no idea what you're on about--,"

“Because if you don’t tell me,” Aramis continued as if Michel had not spoken. “Then Marguerite and Geneviève are going to find out about each other.”

The smile fell from Michel’s face and he looked as if Aramis had struck him.

“You won’t dare,”

“In a heartbeat. Did you know Geneviève has quite the temper when she’s crossed? I heard she once slapped a man hard enough to knock his nose from his face.”

“Aramis—,”

“Margerite’s not much better, I’m afraid. I do credit you your stamina, Michel. Neither of them could be accused of a lack of passion.”

Michel scowled at them, but there was not much heat in it. He knew when he was outmaneuvered and accepted it gracefully.

“So tell us what d’Artagnan is up to and you can go on making them both very satisfied women. On different days of the week, of course,” Aramis finished, her friendly smile softening the blow enough for Michel to be amused by her rather than angry. 

After Michel sang for his supper (or rather his dessert), Athos felt a grim satisfaction at being proven right in her suspicions. She was going to string Bélanger up by his thumbs, charming smile be damned.

“How did you know about Marguerite and Geneviève?” Porthos asked as Michel slinked away.

“Adele told me,” Aramis replied with a shrug. 

“The Cardinal’s mistress?” Athos asked after a moment, a wrinkle appearing across her brow. She had vague recollections of a pretty young girl with bouncing strawberry blonde hair and a cheerful voice twirling around court. Athos would have thought her too energetic for the somber Cardinal.

“Aye. We’ve been meeting up for supper every few weeks once we realized we were sharing a few of our men. Makes it much easier to plan things out when you know the other woman’s schedule."

Athos would have been fine with the conversation ending there, but Porthos looked intrigued.

“Who were you sharing?” she asked.

“Auguste Delacroix, that blade smith from the Latin Quarter,” Aramis replied, off her fingers. “Leon Ponthieux, the King’s huntsman. Renier, that player from the royal theatre."

“Can see why you'd need a schedule.”

“Isn’t the whole point of a man keeping a mistress to be that he gets her to himself?” Athos could not help but inquire. Aramis grinned and linked their arms together. Her free hand shot out to twine itself around Porthos’ as they walked.

“Of course it is. Two of those men each believe they have me heart and soul, even as they slink into Adele's chambers. Renier knows better—I think he knows about our little arrangement. Adele and I simply see a benefit in trading information.”

“And you like tweaking the Cardinal’s nose without him knowing it.”

“Always, my dove."

*

d’Artagnan knew how to lie. It was a habit he had cultivated during the lethargic summers that wafted through Gascony, when the air hung heavy and he was bored enough to practice on hapless victims. His father disapproved of the habit, but d’Artagnan would not deny himself a skill in times of need. So when Vadim, with eyes intent and a voice like satin, held a hammer and chisel to his hand, d’Artagnan lied for all he was worth. Lying did not come from words, he had found. It came from belief. And d'Artagnan believed he had come too far not survive this.

Vadim believed he could read a man’s character in his eyes. d’Artagnan supposed they all had to believe in something.

He was exhausted to his bones when night finally came to the dingy hideaway, but rest would not come to him. It turned out to be for the best, since Vadim slipped out the door as the moon rose high over the dilapidated buildings. d’Artagnan did not think twice about getting to his feet and following. It was difficult to track him, and d’Artagnan only managed it with a combination of youthful energy and charmed luck.

Those only got him so far though, and as he watched Vadim enter the house of his mistress, Félix, Vadim’s second in command, took his opportunity to strike. d’Artagnan once again lied through his teeth to save himself as the cool barrel of a loaded pistol dug into his chin. This lie, he knew, was not one he believed, but one he desired, which was almost the same thing. 

He hoped Constance would not mind. In truth, his thoughts never strayed far from the beautiful widow with her sweeping curls and her sharp tongue. He wondered if he could take her lingering gazes and bitten off half-wishes towards him as a sign of something more. But propriety and dignity were important to her, for all her independence. She was a creature of the old world and the new, one minute ready to dare the flames of tradition and the next feeding its fires higher. He worried over her acceptance of a suit from a poor farmer’s boy with only his sword and his wits to his name, for all she may desire him too. Better, perhaps, to set the entire aside.

He was also fairly sure the ladies would string him up by his boot heels if he admitted to his yearnings. They made no secret of their affection for Constance and the safe haven she granted them. They may call him brother, but he was under no illusions that they would have something to say of his wishes for courtship. Constance placed one foot in each side of society, wading its treacherous waters with the grace of a grand ship on the high seas, but Porthos, Athos, and Aramis tended toward setting the entire establishment on fire and dancing on the ashes.

But the lie came to his tongue (quick and easy since he wished it to be true) and he named Constance his mistress to escape a bloody death on the steps of a brothel he had no business being at.

As he led a disbelieving Félix toward the house of Madame Bonacieux, d’Artagnan took stock of his options. For all the guilt and deceit that brought him there, arriving on Constance’s doorstep could prove useful to his cause. He needed to get word to the Musketeers and let them know he needed more time, but he could not risk taking his shadows to their front steps. Whenever Constance appeared at the door of the garrison, she was given instant access no matter the time. She could pass on word for him.

She would tell the ladies, he realized at once. Guilt racked him at the thought. He had been a fool to allow the others to talk him into excluding the ladies. They would have given him the guidance he lacked right now.

Constance was helping one of her maids take down the laundry for the night when he spied her figure from around the corner. She looked lovely in the evening light with her auburn curls and her simple blue dress swaying around her. He did not have to fake the flash of desire across his face at the sight of her.

"The Bonacieux widow?" Félix accused in stunned disbelief beside him. "You bed a woman with ties to the Musketeers, yet you claim to have no part of them?"

"She has no ties," d'Artagnan defied, cursing internally at the unforeseen bump.

"She's in deep with those Musketeer girlies, everyone knows that."

d'Artagnan wondered if the ladies knew how popular they were amongst Parisian gossipmongers. It was a more entertaining thought then the dreadful one that now second guessed his lie.

He had to believe. Shooting Félix a cocky smile, he strode up to Constance. Without a word, he sunk his fingers into her vivid curls, and bestowed upon her lips a kiss that spoke both of his unspoken feeling and his desperation to hold his makeshift plan together.

She gave a soft squeak against him even as her slender fists slamming into his ribs. He smiled against her skin, not able to stop himself from marveling at her dual nature. He tried to muffle it as he withdrew. Her eyes where sharp with a warning that, while she will wait for him to explain himself, it had better be a good explanation.

He managed to get her inside with no great fuss, but did discover he was a wanted man in the process. He guessed his escape from the Bastille had garnered more attention than he previously thought.

The slap was a bit of a surprise. Constance put only a little power behind it, but the sting across his cheek was a sharp reminder of her displeasure with him.

"What was that for?" he demanded. Constance shot him a glare with fire in her eyes.

"You could not think of a better plan? In front of my maid, no less! Oh, my neighbors will be talking of nothing else for weeks."

"You worry about what your neighbors think?"

"I'm a widow with a great deal of gossip already at my doorstep," Constance snapped back. "I worry at anything that could hurt me."

d'Artagnan thought she was far too concerned with the opinions of others. Even if he were to allow her reputation to be tarnished by his actions, the ladies would never leave her to suffer.

He dismissed the thought from his mind. There were other, less distractingly complicated things to deal with.

“You need to get a message to the Musketeers for me,” d’Artagnan explained as he rubbed the sting out of his cheek.

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Constance replied with acid in her voice as she pointing behind him. d’Artagnan was filled with a rising dread. Turning to her dining room, he let out a groan at what he saw. 

Three pairs of eyes stared back at him from Constance's dinning table.

“You look like hell, pup.” 

*

While he was stuck gaping in the doorway, Aramis took a moment to look d’Artagnan over. He was not exempt from her inspection simply because he was on the opposite side of the riot. His clothes were a little ragged, and his sturdy jacket was missing. Under the sleeves of his shirt, she could make out faint bruises from a pair of shackles, and there were deep circles around his eyes. He seemed to be in decent enough shape, but he did look haunted at seeing them. Relief was there, but so was fear and a healthy dose of guilt.

Damn the Bastille. It made even the most sensible of men believe themselves back centuries in time. But there was nothing to be done for it now. Their little brother had dug himself deep and it was their responsibility to see him back out.

“Sit down,” Athos ordered. Aramis watched d’Artagnan’s face twist as he decided if he would test her or not, and she wished him luck with that. Athos expected to be obeyed and was painfully clear on what would happen if she was not.

She was unsurprised when Athos won their contest of wills and d’Artagnan dropped onto the bench before them. Her first instinct was to calm them all, to break the tension and create a space for them to laugh and save face. But her sister would never forgive her for stepping in and undermining her, so she laced her fingers into Porthos’ under the table to remind herself of where she was and bit her tongue against the words kicking at her teeth. 

“We know Bélanger put you up to this,” Athos continued, not allowing d’Artagnan a chance to speak even as his mouth opened to explain. “We know your mission was to end in the Bastille, and that everything since that has been you running off instincts. We know Tréville is aware of this silly scheme.”

Aramis had not known that, but Athos sometimes left things out of her explanations to them. Porthos squeezed her hand once and untangled them to rise to her feet. She was never able to stand still when she was upset, and now she paced and prowled behind them. Her methods of extracting information were direct: she demanded answered and doled out punishment if she was denied. When she again demanded answers she was almost always rewarded. It was a straight-forward approach that Aramis would have encouraged when their little brother was not their target. So Porthos instead paced her agitation out and that left Aramis at loose ends, her fingers picking at her skin to distract herself.

“What we don’t know is why you didn’t tell us,” Athos finished, her eyes harder than diamond.

The silence was oppressive. Aramis tried to concentrate on the sound of Porthos’ boots against the hardwood floor, but it only amplified the tension. She longed to say something, to take control of the room. When she played a room, everyone danced to her tune. But silence and expectations were Athos’ weapons of choice, and she wielded them as well as she did a sword.

A small, delicate pressure came to rest on her thigh as Athos brushed her knuckles against the fabric of her skirts. Her sister would not look at her, but the comforting weight of her fingers helped Aramis fight against the desire to speak. She did not care about proprietary when she grabbed Athos’ hand and laced their fingers together. Her sisters touch always seems to calm the raging impulses that stormed within her. 

For all her discomfort, d’Artagnan looked to be in agony. His face still held the youthful clarity of the uncorrupted, and it was easy to see his misery in every line of his body. Aramis felt bad about that, but not bad enough to intervene. This was a lesson that needed to stick, or their investment in him would be for nothing. He had to trust their judgment and their abilities. 

“Bélanger told me not to let you near the Bastille,” he said. While there was still a trace of shame in his voice, he looked to already be bouncing back. Aramis could not resist petting back his hair as a reward.

Porthos rolled her eyes at them, but her stance lost the aggressiveness that characterized her annoyance. Athos looked satisfied, but not pleased.

“Why did he approach you?”

“He thought I wouldn’t be suspected of being a Musketeer.”

Grudgingly, Aramis gave Bélanger credit for that. It was true their little brother did not yet have the lethal assurance or devastating presence that many of their fellow Musketeers wore with ease. He would not have risen suspicion amongst Vadim and his men.

That did not gave Bélanger the right to hijack what was theirs.

“Why didn’t you come to us?” she asked, taking over from Athos.

“I barely survived the Bastille,” d’Artagnan told the tabletop. “I couldn’t imagine what it would do to the three ladies of the Musketeers.”

Porthos snarled wordlessly, but Aramis intervened before she could hurl out the words that were brewing on her lips. She leaned over and flicked a gold dusted fingernail against his forehead.

"We told you, silly goose. We're your sisters, not your ladies." They were the queen's own, Tréville's daughters, and ladies of the Musketeers, but to d'Artagnan they were nothing so entrenched in imagery and devotion. Apparently he had not pieced that all together yet. Aramis could wait, but she would be the first to claim patience was not one of her virtues.

d’Artagnan slumped in his seat like a puppet without strings. It only took Porthos a moment to round the table and drop down next to him, pressing her shoulder hard into his. Aramis smiled at her, even as she took proper hold of Athos’ hand. Porthos was quick to her temper but just as quick to forgive, and always saw it fit to offer them redemption, no matter their sins. It was one of the things she most adored about her towering sister.

“You gonna do something this stupid without us ever again?” she asked in a gruff voice. d’Artagnan shook his head in emphatic movements.

“Good,” Athos said. “Now that we have that in order, what have you found out?”

“Shouldn’t I be telling Bélanger?” Though d’Artagnan still looked warn out, he was already bouncing back enough to shoot them a quick, cocky smile.

“I’ll be sure to let him know I took over when next I see him,” Athos replied, brushing off the trivial detail of usurping a mission with all the confidence her blood and skills gave her.

d’Artagnan’s laugh was weak, but it was a laugh all the same. Aramis rejoiced in it and reached over to flick at his nose. Since she was over there, she also touched her fingertips to Porthos’ cheek as well. The reaffirming touch rightening her world.

Rolling his eyes at her, d’Artagnan laid out the rest of the plan as he knew it, including Vadim’s rhetoric against the monarchy and his pension for explosives. It did not paint a cheerful picture.

“That sounds nasty,” Porthos commented once he finished. “I say we kill him now and be done with it.”

d’Artagnan stared at her with an expression of shocked uncertainty. Aramis realized he had not had a chance to encounter Porthos’ abrupt way of dealing with with obstacles. She herself could not say she was not considering that avenue.

“No,” Athos stepped in. d’Artagnan still looked worried by her tone, which was more disappointed than scandalized. “This could go deeper than him. If it’s a true revolution, there could be cells stationed across all of France waiting for a signal of some sort. Can we send Aramis back with you?”

That would work, she supposed. If she were able to speak to Vadim face-to-face she may be able to confirm his motivations. Men with the fire of revolution in their souls were hard to miss, and Vadim seemed far too in love with the shadows to be a true believer. Watching him would confirm that, or lead her to more of his compatriots.

But d’Artagnan was already shaking his head.

“I’m not sure. They still don’t trust me, and I already introduced Constance as my mistress.”

“You did what!”

Constance always claimed to prefer to be left out of Musketeer business. When they arrived on her doorstep earlier in the evening, she had lingered with them only enough to make sure they did not need her presence before waving them away as she went about her tasks. After she had shoved d’Artagnan at them, she washed her hands of the matter. She had been happy to leave them to their discussion while she worked, but her name drew her attention and now she stood in the doorway. Her face was bright was indignation, and her eyes blazed with it.

“Why do you think I kissed you?” d’Artagnan shot back, much less terrified of her rage than he was of theirs.

“I thought you just needed to get my attention!”

“Hell of a way to get someone’s attention,” Porthos muttered, grinning when Athos shot her a look.

“Oooh, my neighbors!” Constance bemoaned. She turned back to her desk in a flurry, but not before leaned over to smack the back of d’Artagnan’s head.

“Her neighbors are all nosy old hags,” Aramis dismissed as their little brother rubbed at his battered crown. She could boast a few interactions with them, and they had all ended in name calling.

Next to her, Athos looked about out patience with the lot of them. Leaning back, she studied their linked hands under the table with distant eyes while she thought. Aramis already knew there were not many good options.

“Let me go back in alone,” d’Artagnan opted. Athos shot him a disapproving look. “They already trust me.Somewhat,” he tried again. “And I’ll report back to you as soon as I find more.”

Athos’s face was painted in reluctance, but she turned to she and Porthos to search out their opinions. She would not make this decision without them.

Aramis rebelled against sending their untested brother back into the fray with nothing but his wits about him, but no other way of tracking Vadim was coming to her. Operations with in inside man were difficult, and needed to be handled delicately to insure everyone walked away alive. Maintaining the balance between truth and fabrication came naturally to her. Though young, she thought she could see the same natural ease in d’Artagnan as well. There was a chance he could find everything he was after and more. She nodded to Athos, squeezing their fingers together in emphasis.

Across the table Porthos, for reasons all her own, nodded as well. She ruffled d’Artagnan’s hair as she rose to circle the table again. Aramis felt infinitely more confident with her sister at her back.

“Alright,” Athos sanctioned. “But the moment you learn enough, you run for the garrison. Don’t tunnel further into this rat nest.”

d’Artagnan nodded eagerly, and Aramis could not help but think they were sending a cub to do a lion’s job.

“I have to get back. Félix must have reported my movements to Vadim by now.”

“Tread carefully,” Athos ordered. Aramis watched the warning sail right over d’Artangan’s head, but she applauded her sister’s effort. Once he left, Constance let out a loud, frustrated hiss and sunk her fingers into her curls to yank at them inefficacy.

“Stop that,” Aramis commented. She waved over the other woman and switched seats with her. Without thinking too deeply about her actions, she began undoing Constance's pinned locks to repair the damage she had caused to her curls.

“I can do this myself,” Constance told her, but she sat still as Aramis tinkered.

“Enjoy my labors,” Aramis replied with easy defiance. Keeping her fingers busy helped Aramis think, and the simple twists and braids offered her mind a chance to wonder. However, she had found herself bereft of late. Porthos wore her untamed curls free and only appreciated Aramis’ touch upon them when she was too tired to criticize the results. Athos would endure her for hours at a time with her back straight and head forward like she had been taught to do. It was one of the biggest signs of her sister’s noble heritage that she had no idea how to dress her own hair, as she never needed to do it herself in the past. It had been a delightful arrangement for them all until Athos slashed away her tumbling tresses a few months ago. Now Aramis was left with little to work with past simple buns and braids.

Constance did not seem to fully understand her need to fix the loose ends and snagged twists of her hair, but was willing to submit to it all the same, if somewhat ungracefully.

“Tell me we did the right thing,” Athos commanded, standing to grab one of the wine bottles Constance kept in the side of the room. She opened it when a practiced flick of her wrist and took a long draw from the bottleneck.

“He’s already decided to see the mission through,” Aramis told her. “If he'd involved us at the beginning, this part could be playing out differently, but now we’ll never know.“

“You’re not angry?” Constance asked, trying to turn her head to see them. Aramis set her head straight with a disapproving noise at her work being interrupted.

“Furious,” Porthos admitted. She was keeping her hands busy passing a trinket from the mantel back and forth between her palms. “But scolding him for that won’t help.”

“They do this to us every few seasons or so,” Aramis picked up, smiling slightly at the memory. “Our boys like to think they’re protecting us, but really all it does is get in the way."

“Then tell them!”

“We have,” Athos said. “And they’ll remember for a time. Then a hare-cracked scheme like this gets hobbled together, and one of the loons gets it in his head to be chivalrous rather than practical.”

“So we’ll remind them again,” Porthos said, smiling a sharp smile. “It’s a lesson I don’t mind repeating.”

Pinning back the last of Constance’s corrected curls, Aramis had to agree. d’Artagnan was not yet a Musketeer, but it seemed plain to the others that she and her sisters had taken him as theirs. There was a real possibility of a handful of the boys trying to convince him down this silly path again. And if d’Artagnan learned to never trust in their skills, working with him would be a nightmare. A sound round of reminders were just the remedy for that, she thought.

*

For as devoted as Porthos was toward Queen Anne, she thought King Louis was a moron. She once knew a beggar who claimed to smell crazy in others, and he would say that the king reeked of it. She kept that opinion to herself of course, but she also sent God more than one prayer for the next Daulphin to take after his mother. What kind of fool ignored all advice to keep him safe to prove a point when a country’s welfare rested on his shoulders?

But decisions had been made, and now she had a job to do. She watched the royal couple leave Notre Dame from the crowds. She felt more at home in the press of people than walking in the sanctified steps of the king and queen. Intentions spoke to her in a crowd, and she knew what to look for. The one everyone avoided making eye contact with, the one who did not smile or cheer, the one who fought to stay in the back rather then push to move forward.

Her sisters stood behind the monarchs along with Tréville and a handful of the lads. Athos had been blunt when she told him they had discovered d’Artagnan’s true mission, but Tréville had appeared more impressed then put out.

Athos had laid out their discoveries as they stood in his office, her tone as dry and controlled. Once she had finished, Tréville had sat back and watched them for a few moments, his weary smile not quite hidden by the hand he pressed to his mouth.

“There’ll come a day when I can no longer count on deception to reign you all in,” he lamented at last, looking rather put out by the thought.

“But life wouldn’t be nearly as fun if we didn’t play these little games with each other, Captain,” Aramis replied with a bright smile. It was an opening that gave them all a graceful exit from the discussion. Tréville nodded once in acknowledgment (and as close to an apology as they would ever get from him) and they moved on.

“Anything you want us to know?” Athos asked once she covered their discussion with d’Artagnan.

“He’s believed to have stolen a diamond pendant from the royal jewels,” he explained. "Teardrop cut mounted on a gold chain."

“Is that one of the famous ones?” Porthos asked Athos. Her sister’s knowledge of such things was oddly specific. Porthos had come to accept it as another quirk of her noble upbringing. Almost like how Porthos knew the trademark of every forger in Paris without having met a single one of them.

Athos shook her head.

“It’s a sentimental piece. Phillip the Bold obtained it for Isabella of Aragon during the Crusades. It’s been part of the royal collection ever since her death. Worth enough to risk the theft but not unique enough to be tracked once out of France.”

“How do you know these things?” Aramis demanded, looking at her in baffled disbelief. Athos shrugged, but her face clearly told Aramis to stop asking. She was not as sensitive to discussing her linage when in such small, trusted company but she still clammed up quick when confronted questions with she disliked.

“Is it possible he plans to sell it to fund his ventures?” she asked instead. “Revolutions are expensive.”

“Could be,” Aramis mused. “What’s something like that worth?”

“How big?” Porthos asked. Athos estimated the size between her fingers, which caused her to let out a low whistle. “Could live comfortably for a decade off something that size if I played my cards right.”

“We could track it back through his buyers once we have him in custody,” Athos concluded. “Is King Louis determined to present himself to the people tomorrow?”

“Aye,” Tréville confirmed. Porthos could not help but notice he was doing his best to keep out of their way. He instead seemed comfortable sitting back and watching them work with a satisfied glint in his eyes. She smiled at him, taking comfort in the knowledge that he was proud of their work. All the deception in the world could not overshadow the fact that he actively encouraged their thoughts and instincts after so many shunned them for it. “The Cardinal blundered, and he is now more resolute than ever."

“So we apprehend him in the crowd. We’ve done it before,” Aramis decided. Porthos did not point out that Aramis had taken a knife to her thigh before as well, but she could think of no other way around it.

So on Easter Day, as the bells of Notre Dame rang out, Porthos immersed herself in the crowed because it never occurred to her not to put herself there. For all her bulk, she slid silently through the masses she listened, and she watched. This was her ground now.

She knew when found him, clear across the square from her and tucked into the shadows of a dense column. His clothing was poorly made and ragtag, his boots held together with spit and prayer. But his hands were steady, and his eyes were intent as they tracked the king and queen across the courtyard. His bulky jacket bulged in all the wrong places.

Porthos moved as fast as she dared, but his instincts seemed as honed as her own. His eyes snapped to her, sniffing her out like a boar does a pack of hounds. She snarled and threw caution to the wind, shouting out just as he lunged forward.

He screamed, a cry for the death of the king as if rallying for battle. Porthos saw the first flash of a lit bomb before entire square descended into madness.

There was more then one hidden in the crowd, but they were easier to spot amongst the backward scrambling bodies. Porthos slammed the hilt of her schiavona into the stomach of one, using the force of the blow to drop him to the ground. A quick draw of her blade across the bulk of his stomach ensured he would be more concerned with keeping his innards inside himself than with causing trouble.

The rushing crowd made it hard for her to maneuver through the square and fight, but she pushed herself further toward the rest of the Musketeers. There was only so much she would be able to do on her own in this chaos. But once she got to the rest of them, her heart froze.

Screams filled the air since the first shot had been fired. But hers now joined the masses as she saw Aramis dive for a lit bomb rolling across the cobblestones. Her navy skirts and Musketeer cloak fluttered around her as she covered the thing, fuse and all, before it could roll to the feet of the queen. Porthos’ breath caught in her throat as she had only a moment to brace herself to watch Aramis’ death before her eyes.

Only her heart kept beating, and her sister kept breathing. When Aramis rose to her feet, she held the smothered fuse was in one hand while she held the useless bomb curled close to her chest in the other. She saw Porthos staring at her and had the gall to wink, smiling as brightly as she could.

The next revolutionary Porthos brought down was faced with the full measure of her wrath and relief. As she dragged him to the ground by the back of his shirt, she conceded that she did not have to be this brutal. But she also found that did not stop her from landing a vicious kick to his knees to ensured he stayed down. The broken nose was overdoing it, but her arm felt comfortably numb afterward, and gave her something else to concentrate on rather than the folly of her idiotic sister.

“Go!” she heard Tréville order, and she jumped aside as the royal carriage raced passed. She caught sight of the king and queen for only a moment, but they both seemed to be alive and only worst for wear. The pounding sound of hoofs took the worst of the chaos with it as the lingering fighting in the square was rounded up. The Musketeers were now able to focus on the fight at hand with the monarchs gone, and no matter how reverent their souls, untrained revolutionaries stood no match against Musketeers. 

“I want them all!” Tréville was ordering, looking livid and silly in his dress uniform in the middle of the square. “Even the ones already dead!”

The one she cut open was dead by now, but the one who’s kneecaps she damaged was attempting to crawl away by the strength of his elbows. Aramis kicked his arms out from under him as she passed. Porthos growled at her when she approached, as words seemed too challenging at the moment.

“It was a dud,” she explained in haste, hefting the bomb up as if to use it as a shield against Porthos’ sharp glare.

“Didn’t know that when you jumped on it, did ya?” she shot back, casting a quick eye out for Athos. Her last sister was staring down at her unsheathed sword, the body of another revolutionary crumpled at her feet. Her face was distant and it took Porthos calling her name three times before she turned towards them.

“Alright?”

Athos opened her mouth in reply, only to have it cut off when another round of explosions echoed across the square. The pebbles across the cobblestone rattled and the air rang. Porthos was moving before they ended, ready for the next attack even when she was not sure where it was coming from.

“The jewels!” Tréville barked beside them, more to himself than anything. He cursed loudly, but Athos was already staring at him with wide, unseeing eyes.

Porthos followed her before she realized Athos had begun to run. The sound of familiar footfalls behind her told her Aramis was quick on her feet as well, dashing after them across cobblestones.

The Louvre was a good ways away, but Porthos did not track the distance. This was a chase, and she loved the chase. It was a pure and simple task; a clear path after the frustrated tangle of the last few days. No one could question the intent of a hunt, nor deceive her about her prey.

She was faster than Athos, but she made sure to keep her sister in the lead as they breeched the palace gates. The Louvre was a maze, but Athos knew the twists and turns of it like Porthos knew the streets of Paris. Marble felt odd under her boots, and she had to be careful not to slide across it as they ran.

She supposed the dank, well-enforced chamber they came across was a vault of some kind, and she could just make out a shimming, delicate light behind the shadowy figure of Vadim. The once intimidating guardsmen lay dead at his feet. She andAthos crept forward into the antechamber while her sister shouted for his attention. Aramis stayed behind them, the staircase giving her an excellent line of sight over them as she shouldered her musket.

d’Artagnan was not with him. Porthos had not seen their little brother amongst the revolutionaries that now littered the courtyard of Notre Dame either. As Athos asked if he was dead, Porthos sent a quick prayer upward that he was not. Vadim would die screaming if that was the case.

Vadim smiled, and placed his fingers in his ears.

Athos had the face of a stone but after years in her company Porthos had learned to read the small signs. Her shoulders tensed, almost indistinguishable under the bulk of her heavy jacket. The next thing Porthos knew, her tiny sister was throwing herself at her, shoving them both against the wall as she screamed for Aramis to get back. Porthos only had time for a breath before fire, ash, and gunpowder enveloped them...

…

…

...When she came to, it was to Aramis yelling in her face, hands racing as she checked over them both. Porthos coughed up blood and dust, forcing herself to move as her body alerted her to each injury the blast bestowed on her.

“Up!” Aramis insisted, prodding them both into action. “Up, up, up.”

“Let the devil take you and your ‘up',” Athos snarled back, but struggled to her feet nonetheless. “Which way did he go?”

“I’m going to guess the large hole in the wall,” Aramis remarked, letting Athos’ glare roll off her with ease. She instead forced Porthos to stand still while she threaded her fingers through her tight curls. Porthos tried to shake her off, not liking the tugging sensation it caused, but Aramis hushed her.

“Just trying to make sure your skull’s in once piece, my lovely,” she explained. “Deep breath now.” Her fingertips skimmed over Porthos’ corset, searching out any faults in the fabric. Porthos grumbled, but did as she ordered. Once she had found some bleeding cuts and a set of darkening bruises along her side, Aramis released her to grab Athos instead.

“Think we'll catch him?” Porthos asked as Athos grumbled under Aramis’ swift fingers. Strands of her hair had slipped the loose bun Aramis had tied it in earlier that morning, and her face was troubled.

“He’s our only chance of finding d’Artagnan,” she replied. Porthos noticed she did not elaborate on the condition he could be in if they did find him, and wished she had not. She held her hand out to Athos, letting her absentmindedly wind their fingers together in a gesture of comfort and solidarity for them both.

Once Aramis satisfied herself that they were both in one piece, they took to the blown out tunnel with caution. The hollowed out earth was musty and dark with only odd smattering of torches to show the way. They dumped more smoke into the air than they did light, making it hard to breath and a struggle to see. But despite it all, the thrill of the hunt came running back to Porthos. Vadim was nothing but a thieving dog, and those she knew how to track.

Not far into the ancient tunnel, they did not find Vadim, but they did find a group of men cursing his name. It seemed they were not the only ones hunting him.

“Oh look,” Aramis called out as they approached. “It’s the one’s that got away. How darling.”

It was a quick and dirty fight, just the way Porthos liked them. The men never stood a chance when faced with the three of them when they were determined. As they kicked the bodies aside, Athos gave her a small smile.

“Feel better?”

“Undeniably,” Porthos grinned as they kept going.

They found d’Artagnan in the darkened caves, blood in his hair and ash on his skin. 

“You’re alive,” Athos said, sounding more surprised then Porthos strictly thought was proper. Of course their little brother was alive. He knew they would have never forgiven him had he died during his first mission.

“‘Course,” he replied, as if they had not pondered finding his dead boy in an alley somewhere. He flicked the end of his sword so the blood across it shone. “Vadim couldn’t have gotten far.” Porthos grabbed his hand and pulled the blade into the meager light of a nearby torch.

“Nice. Good and deep. He won’t be able t’stop bleeding with that,” she complimented. Grabbing the torch, she turned it on the ground and found her trail within moments. 

When they found him, escaped through a small hole twisted out of a protective grate, Vadim was already more corpse than man. Satisfied that her hunt was complete, Porthos lingered back while d’Artagnan and Aramis took to watching Vadim’s last moments. Exhaustion was catching up with her, she nudged a wain looking Athos.

“Was fun though, wasn’t it?” she asked with a tired grin, swaying slightly on legs that were threatening to collapse. Athos rolled her eyes with an exasperated look, but planted her feet into the soaked earth so Porthos could lean on her without them both falling over. They were done now.

*

Aramis had fussed over his wrists, rubbed raw and bleeding as he had worked himself free of the ropes that Vadim had bound him with once he had been discovered. He did not mention the barrels of gunpowder to them. She bandaged him up with quick efficiency and decreed him fit for service with a warning not to strain himself until they healed. d’Artagnan thought he would have been happy with such a simple reprieve, but when he walked into a scowling Athos and a grinning Porthos, he knew his luck had run out.

As Athos put him in he dirt for a sixth time, d’Artagnan offered in apology into the sweat-drenched grit.

“I don’t want an apology,” Athos shot back, cool as ice and steel. “I want you prepared if you ever put yourself in this situation again. Get up, little brother.”

He struggled to his feet until Porthos leaned down, gripped his jacket with two hands, and hauled him up.

“Up, up, little one!” she chirped in good-humored mocking. “You wanna be a Musketeer? You’ll earn it with blood and sweat.”

“Or at least by being smart enough to not leave us out, next time,” Aramis added, her eyes sharp above her grin. While Athos dragged him around the garrison courtyard and Porthos stood leaning against a support beam, she had settled onto the common table with a fresh bottle of blue-black nail dye. She appeared to find it more entertaining to comment on his abuse than to join in.

“I did tell him not to strain himself,” she seemed compelled to point out as Athos dropped him again. 

“Learning a lesson’s not straining,” Porthos replied unsympathetically. 

God above, what had he done to earn sisters this cruel? But d’Artagnan stumbled to his feet anyway and raised his sword to meet Athos again.

“You,” Athos flicked the tip of her rapier in the direction of her grinning sister. “Have no room to talk. You’re next, once he’s learned his lesson to my satisfaction.”

“Now, my darling,” Aramis tried, batting her eyes in sweet adoration. “Musketeers take risks as they must."

“I find it difficult to believe throwing yourself on an unpredictable explosive is an acceptable risk. I suggest you warm up, sister mine. I’m not feeling terribly merciful in my teachings today.”

“Or I can be off,” Aramis replied, hopping off the table. “Adele was going to tell me about a new English stallion she found. He's a fantatic ride, from what she tells me.”

“You’re looking for a new horse?” d’Artagnan asked, only to have all three of his sisters stare at him for a moment.

“Yes, my sweet. In a manner of speaking,” Aramis finally said, smiling at him in a bemused, startled kind of way. “You’ll have to—,”

“Nevermind, Aramis,” Athos commented, cutting off both her sister’s words and d’Artagnan’s questions. Being mindful of her still drying nails, Aramis dropped a quick kiss onto Porthos’ cheek, blew another in Athos’ direction and beat a hasty retreat while her sister was still amused enough to let her out of the gate without a beating. d'Artagnan envied her that.

“Again,” Athos ordered, drawing his attention away from stallions and secrets. With her across from him, he had more pressing matters to be concerned with.


	2. Commodities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t you care about Porthos?”
> 
> At those words, spoken not in anger but disbelief and horror, Athos the wave of guilt she had been fighting back overtake her. Aramis was furious and disappointed in her. Porthos was hurt, maybe dying. Athos knew she could not survive in this world without them, and with one decision she could lose them both. La Fère was mere leagues away, full of death and tragedy and salvation all in one. It damned her years ago, but it could save Porthos now...
> 
> “I know a place nearby.” 
> 
> *
> 
> d'Artagnan get a nickname, Aramis is everyone's emotional guardian, Porthos wants to punch people, and Athos just needs a drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty all, this is when we really start deviating from canon. I promise the path will make sense as we go :)

Like many port cities, Calais was an odd mix of cultures and customs crammed together in the vague shape of a town centered around a cluster of harbors. Though it had been retaken by French rule over thirty years ago, centuries of English and Dutch influence shown through in the buildings, the trade, and the food. d’Artagnan’s ear kept catching conversations in languages he did not recognize. Gascony, with its rolling hills and sweeping countryside, was nothing like the rainy, crowded, and fog-filled Calais, and it easily lent itself to distraction.

Luckily, Émile Bonaire was not a hard man to spot. His jacket, the color of clay and draped with fur, stood out against Calais' misty gray air, and he carried himself like a man who expected attention from others. d'Artagnan was not at all surprised when he headed for the closest open tavern.

d’Artagnan’s father held strong opinions on brothels and taverns. Halls of sin and deceit were some of his kindest words towards them. In Paris, there was a tavern on on every corner, and his sisters knew each by name. If Athos had not drank under its roof, Porthos had gambled there, and Aramis seemed to know every handsome patron by name and reputation. Calais’ taverns were a bit different, more English fare, and a tendency toward hard ale over wine, but the atmosphere was the same.

He stayed in the shadows like Porthos taught him to and watched Bonaire strut into the low tavern door, looking for like he just robbed the devil himself and walked out of hell with his pockets loaded down. His call for a round of drinks on him was greeted with a cry of approval from the room as d’Artagnan slipped in behind him.

Aramis was already there, and she winked at him from the table she claimed.

“Told you he’d come this way,” she said as he dropped into the empty chair beside her.

“It was a lucky guess and you know it,” he shot back. Aramis shrugged unabashedly and nodded over his shoulder. A glance behind him found Athos and Porthos tucked into another table across the room, both of them watching the crowd over their drinks.

“The three by the door followed him in with me,” d’Artagnan reported. He saw her find them even as he said it.

“And two more by the back wall look like they’re up to no good,” she replied.

“All after Bonaire? Popular fellow.”

“He does look like he’d be fun,” she commented, turning her sights toward Bonaire as he strutted around the room. d’Artagnan was becoming familiar with the look on her face. It was one she directed at the type of people she had no intention of behaving with.

“Going to go after him?” he asked, eying the would-be adventurer from across the tavern. He was beginning to understand just how many weapons Aramis utilized as a Musketeer, many of which did not involve steel or gunpowder.

"I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind. It’d be easier to apprehend him, for sure.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“You doubt my ability to lure a man into a bedroom? Shame on you, my knight. I’ve taught you better than that.”

“I only doubt your ability to keep your hands to yourself long enough to get him in a pair of shackles,” he replied, ignoring the nickname. It was a habit she had gotten into after Vadim and the Bastille, and he found he did not mind it terribly.

She kicked him lightly under the table, mirth and speculation written across her face in equal measure. However, Aramis’ tentative plan was destroyed the moment Bonaire slunk across the dingy room and dropped himself down next to Porthos, letting his hand wonder around her waist as he leaned close to whisper in her ear. Beside him, Aramis tensed as all levity left her.

“Not good?” he guessed, his hands already straying to his weapons.

“Porthos doesn’t handle casual flirtations well,” Aramis explained. Even across the tavern, d’Artagnan could see his sister’s skin flushing red and her normally confident, easy posture a riddle of tension. Athos was harder to see tucked into the dark corner near them, but if he strained he could just make her out. Her eyes did not leave Bonaire and Porthos, sharp blue orbs framed by the shadows around her, but she did not move.

“Come now, my lovely, just breath,” Aramis muttered to herself, tapping a red-dyed nail against the woodgrain of the table. She was already on the edge of her seat, ready to move at a moment’s notice. “You can do this. Just get him outside so we can deal with him.”

Bonaire pulled a long feather out of his bag, and presented it to Porthos with a flourish. He let the very tip trail across her cheek, grinning at her as he spoke. The muscles in Porthos’ jaw flexed as she locked her teeth, but she leaned forward, as if in attention to his words. She wore her studded jacket open in the front, revealing the tight corset she wore underneath it that drew attention her deep curves. Bonaire took the opportunity to slip his hand into the gap between her jacket and waist, pulled Porthos out of her chair and into his lap.

Aramis abruptly rose to her feet, but before d’Artagnan could drag her back a frustrated scream rose though the tavern.

“Émile!”

A woman dressed in turquoise and fury stood in the tavern doorway, and she drew a thick knife out as she rushed towards him. Porthos jumped off Bonaire as the woman tried to lash out at her with the blade and Bonaire tumbled over the back of his chair from the force of it. She screamed out more threats, but Porthos merely ripped the knife out of the woman’s hand and threw it aside. Then, with little effort, she swatted her fists away, grabbed the collar of the woman’s bright shirt, and used it to press her face into a nearby table.

“Behave,” she ordered, shaking the woman like a disobedient pup. The woman yelled out a colorful curse as she fought back, however it was not directed to Porthos, but at Bonaire.

“It’s far too early in the morning for this nonsense, darling,” he replied with exasperation as he got to his feet. It was unclear if he was speaking to Porthos or the crazed woman, but d’Artagnan stopped caring when one of the two crooks that followed Bonaire into the tavern decided to play their hand. He rushed for Bonaire and the sound of a pistol firing forced the tavern into chaos. 

d’Artagnan dispatched the second one with little struggle as Aramis worked on the third. Their troublesome adventurer looked ready to sneak out the back door, but Athos was in front of him before he could contemplate more than a few steps. Porthos released her captive with one final shake, shooting a bemused look at them as she stepped over the bodies around her.

“Never let it be said the fairer sex merits no caution,” Bonaire told them jovially, but d’Artagnan could already see the worry and suspicion in his eyes as he took them in.

“How kind of you,” Athos replied in a flat voice. “Émile Bonaire, we are from the King’s Musketeers and you are under arrest by order of King Louis XIII in violation of the Treaty of—,"

“Ladies, ladies,” Bonaire interrupted with a wave of his hand. Athos’ face became stone. “However much you’re being paid for this farce, I can assure you I’ll pay double for you to leave off.”

“I’m sure,” Athos replied dryly. “You will be escorted to Paris to answer to the king on your actions toward colonial—,”

“I’m sure this is just a simple misunderstanding, easily solved by—,” Bonaire started again as he tried to step around them. Porthos stopped him with a hand on his chest. d’Artagnan could see the surprise on his face at her strength as she shoved him back toward Athos and began collecting numerous weapons from around his person.

“If you persist in your comments, I’ll be forced to remove some of your teeth,” Athos told him. “I’m sure that will make it rather difficult to explain yourself to the king. I’m also sure I don’t particularly care about that.”

Bonaire tried to protest again, but d’Artagnan was more interested in the woman who was stalking their circle with blazing eyes.

“What about her?” he asked.

“I have a name!” she snarled. “It is Maria Bonaire, and you will not take my husband!”

Beside d’Artagnan, Aramis started laughing, clasping a hand over her mouth in stifle her noise.

“Of course you’re his wife,” she muttered breathlessly, and d’Artagnan had to press his lips together to keep from being infected by her laughter.

“Yes, we will,” Athos told Maria, shooting Aramis a look. “Feel free to call on him in Paris in a few days’ time.”

“You will not leave me behind!”

“If you’re concerned about your husband’s fidelity beyond your sight, I suggest you geld him before we leave, as you won't be accompanying us. I’d be happy to lend you a knife, if that’s the case.”

“Easy now!” Bonaire protested as Porthos drew another pistol from his boot. It was a well made piece, and she handed it to Aramis rather than adding it to her own belt.

The couple continued to object to this turn of events until Bonaire’s last two shadows made themselves known. d’Artagnan did not recognize them, but Bonaire did as he quickly changed his tune about a trip to Paris. He was clutching his leather satchel with white knuckled fingers, and seemed terrified of it being taken from him.

They departed Calais immediately, leaving behind Bonaire's fuming wife and the pair of shadows in their wake. But d’Artagnan could not help but glance over his shoulder as they rode out.

“What’s to stop them from following us?” he asked.

“Nothing but the knowledge that we’ll kill them if they do,” Athos replied. 

*

Athos knew the roads to La Fère like she knew the hilt of her own sword. (She did not know when she had stopped thinking of it as Thomas’ sword, however she put it to far better use then he ever did. It was hers now.) Traveling with Bonaire’s loaded down wagon meant their pace was greatly slowed, but it also gave her an excuse to take them off the main roads that led straight through that cursed place. With any luck, she would be able to steer them around the town entirely and into Paris without much fuss.

Bonaire tried to escape their custody a few times, but Porthos always managed to grab him before he got more than a few feet away. After a while, he seemed to find more enjoyment in talking with her than plotting an escape, and Athos caught bits of their conversation from the wagon. Porthos never tried to conceal her past, and she was honest in her answers to Bonaire’s questions about her background. Athos thought he was abnormally interested in how she ended up in Paris and found is tone rude, but Porthos took it all in stride, like she did so many things.

Athos was aware of a great rise of shame within her. Porthos did not keep secrets about her past and as a result was free of the constraints of it. Athos often wondered if confiding her own secrets to them would bring her a similar freedom, but she was never able to work up the courage to do so. Every time thoughts of André and Thomas and La Fère circled, she felt a deep chasm open within her that threatened to swallow all she held dear. She was not that woman anymore. That was not the woman her sisters trusted or who Tréville relied on or who protected France from her enemies. There was no honor in Olivia de la Fère.

So Athos shoved everything that reminded her of her past self into a small chest and locked it tight. And she herded them around La Fère as quietly as she dared.

They came to an abandoned stable tucked into a small glen that could shelter them from the quickly coming evening. It was large enough to hide the wagon from prying eyes and mask any smoke from cooking fires. Athos was acutely aware of how close La Fère was, but she could not push them faster without cause. Resting here meant they could get started earlier in the morning and be far away within a matter of hours. Then she could settle the anxious feeling in her stomach.

Athos felt her instincts scream as Aramis stilled next to her. Porthos was already off the wagon with her sword drawn and d’Artagnan by her side. It was far too silent in the abandoned glen. No birds sang from the trees, no animals rustled the bush.

“What is it?” Bonaire asked, oblivious to the wrongness around them. Porthos hushed him without explanation even as she pulled him off the wagon. Athos drew her own rapier as Aramis called out.

“Only curs and swine attack women on a protected road!” she yelled, winking at Athos as she said it.

“I don’t think that’s going to stop them.”

“Never let it be said I didn’t try to warn them,” Aramis replied just as men began appearing over the crest of a small hill. Others burst out from behind the rotted barn door. Athos was a little startled to count so many of them.

“Porthos, stay with Bonaire!” she ordered as she cut the first one to come at her down. She did not have time to see what her sisters were doing as she moved. The second one was more skilled, and the blows had enough strength behind them to numb her arm as she blocked them. His clothes and weapons were not that of a bandit, which worried her more than anything. Bandits were easy to explain, but this was something else.

Her opponent got cocky when she gave him ground, and was not taking killing strikes. Athos repaid the mistake by sliding her blade across the back of his knee when he gave her the opening and, with him now forced off balance, she smashed her hilt into his face. The third tried to rush her but she kicked him away and did not wait to see him tumble down the hill he had just finished climbing up. She drew her pistol and shot another at point blank range, then used the heavy wooden grip to knock the next one senseless with a blow across his cheek.

They were many, but they were disorganized. They had not expected a fight from their prey and did not know if they had orders to kill or merely obtain. Athos, happily, did not have that dilemma. She dumped the next one in the dirt with a broken hand and a bleeding gut and was about to address the one behind him when a voice called out through the glen.

“Enough!”

Athos glanced around to find a tubby man (a merchant by the look his clothes) came around the door of the barn. At his command, many of his men retreated, though Athos did not lower her rapier. The merchant came forward into the light, and she decided she did not like him. His hair lank was with sweat, and the clothes he sported were ill-suited to travel. He wore no weapons on display and did not seem ready to engage her, which meant he relied on the troop of men with him to enforce his wishes. His beady, sharp eyes disregarded her after a brief inspection and instead locked in behind her.

“Ladies,” Bonaire called out, waving around a makeshift sword he found during the struggle. “May I introduce my business partner, Paul Monière."

“I have no quarrel with women—,”

“With the King’s Musketeers,” d’Artagnan corrected, coming to stand beside Athos. He was panting lightly as he cleaned away blood from his blade, and Athos made a note to talk to him about efficiency over showmanship when they returned to Paris.

“…with the King’s Musketeers,” Monière repeated slowly, eying her anew. Athos shot him a dismissive look, though she gave him credit for not arguing the point. “Only him!” he finished, jabbing a thick finger at Bonaire.

“Really, Monière—,"

"Bonaire owes me my cargo! I’ve been funding his expeditions for eight years now, and yet I arrive at Calais to find him gone and my cargo no where to be found!”

Definitely a merchant.

“There was no time!” Bonaire exclaimed, addressing the entire glen. “I’m forced to travel to Paris without warning!"

“Just hand him over and we’ll be gone,” Monière explained, eying Bonaire with undisguised contempt.

“Do doubt you have just cause to want this man’s head on a spike, mousier,” she replied, making sure to layer her voice with as much of her noble heritage as possible. She would be damned if this man thought he could walk off with their prisoner. “He’s clearly a cheat and a scoundrel.” And you choose to go into business with him anyway, she thought. "However, it’s our duty to deliver him to Paris to answer to the king’s justice. Whatever disputes you have with him can be taken up there.”

Mousier Monière humped at her, and puffed himself up to argue. 

She was sure she could have talked them out of the situation, had she been given the time. The merchant had little in the way of legitimacy, and she knew she baffled him, all of which gave her leverage in their dealings. But time, it seemed, was not on her side. Athos heard a familiar click behind her, and a glance over her shoulder showed Aramis with her pistol pointed at the merchant’s heart. At her feet, Porthos lay curled in a tight ball, and Athos stilled at the sight of blood on her sister. When had Porthos been hit?

“Tell you men to lay down their weapons and leave,” Aramis ordered, no trace of her usual cheer in her voice. She was furious, Athos could tell, and would not hesitate in killing his man if it meant he was no longer in their way.

Athos turned back to the merchant, but made sure to stay out of the line of Aramis’ shot.

“You heard her. You’ll find Bonaire in Paris in a week’s time. I’ll tell the king of your grievances against him. Until then, begone,” she ordered with every ounce of authority she could muster.

“Why should I trust your word?”

Athos took a step forward, and then another, until she was near nose to nose with Monière. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” she told him, keeping her voice level and low. Monière, startled by her aggression, took a quick step back and nodded.

Athos did not bother watching he and his men depart. d’Artagnan grabbed Bonaire and took his odd weapon away without her asking him to, and she came to stand by the wagon as Aramis dug through their supplies.

“How bad is it?” she asked in low tones. Porthos was groaning into the dirt, her arm limp while the the rest of her shook like a leaf.

“It needs stitching,” Aramis told her as she found makeshift bandages for a sling. “And soon. We need to find some place close by where I can work."

Athos viciously kicked down the panic she felt rising within her. La Fère was the closest village to them. They could not stop there. 

“We need to get back to Paris,” she countered. It was only a day's journey away, give or take. It surely could not be that bad.

“Porthos won’t survive that trip.”

“Then we can stay here.”

“This place is festering,” Aramis hissed, her eye starting to harden as she realized Athos was fighting her on this. “I wouldn’t kennel dogs here."

“Porthos is strong. She’ll be fine.” Porthos would never leave them. And they did not need to go to La Fère, her panicked mind supplied. There were other options. Better options. Options that did not force her to confront her nightmares. But that voice cut itself short when Aramis looked at her like she had just damned her soul.

“Don’t you care about Porthos?”

At those words, spoken not in anger but disbelief and horror, Athos the wave of guilt she had been fighting back overtake her. Aramis was furious and disappointed in her. Porthos was hurt, maybe dying. Athos knew she could not survive in this world without them, and with one decision she could lose them both. La Fère was mere leagues away, full of death and tragedy and salvation all in one. It damned her years ago, but it could save Porthos now...

Athos realized she had already made her decision, no matter how much she dreaded it. That place had caused enough death. She could not let it cause even more.

“I know a place nearby.” 

*

Aramis was not interested in whatever little village they ended up in with Porthos bleeding out like a stuck pig, but she did have to admit the ruined house surprised her a bit. Athos led them not to the main road like she expected, but down a winding path that ended at the blackened, charred remnants of a house. Aramis could see by the ruins it had been a great house, and some of the high beams were thick enough to survive the fire that had consumed its walls. It was a rather miserable sight all together, and she wondered why no one had simply torn the entire structure down to rebuild it. She was beginning to see why her sister had wanted to avoid this place.

Athos did not concern herself with the destroyed house. She did not even look at it.

The inn that Athos led them to rested on the far edge of the tiny bourg beyond the house, and Aramis noticed her sister tried her best to hide from members of the village they came across. She need not have bothered. The small town was tragic. Aramis could see a once prosperous village its burnt out husk, but everyone there seemed to have given up on anything past surviving to the next day. The dilapidated locale did not boast many villagers, and most of the farmers were in their fields even this late in the day. Those they did pass seemed more mindful of their work than with visitors.

Athos sent d’Artagnan to broker with the innkeeper, and in short order they had a set of rooms Aramis was able to attend Porthos in.

“No tea,” Porthos snarled as Aramis eased her jacket off. “Pup, don’t let either of ‘em near the stuff."

“Alright?”

“She’s just being foolish,” Aramis told him cheerfully as she tossed Porthos’ jacket over a nearby chair. She was already picturing Constance’s face at the latest damage done to it.

“Foolish? You drug me! Every single time you do this you drug me! No water, either,” Porthos ranted, even as her face twisted in pain from her wound.

“We do no such thing,” Athos said, helping Porthos work her arms out of her shirt and ignoring her grumbling.

“You,” Aramis ordered, pointing at Bonaire. “Turn around.” He was too slippery to be let out of their sight, but Porthos was uncomfortable when her layers were peeled away from her skin and deserved some privacy. He squeaked in protest, but d’Artagnan gave him no other option when he grabbed the other man’s collar and twisted him around to face the wall.

The wound sliced down Porthos’ shoulder blade, and had taken a bite out of her corset as well as her shirt and jacket. Between the large tear and the blood, it would not be salvageable after all this, Aramis made a sympathetic noise at the sight of it. But she was calmer now with Porthos settled and on her way to being patched up. She had done this kind of work in the midst of battlefields and sieges. Being able to work without constant chaos and noise was a blessing she rarely received.

“Are you sure you don’t want something to take the edge off?” Athos asked as Porthos cried out in pain when Aramis loosened the first few eyelets of her corset. “The innkeeper must keep a supply of wine on hand.”

“I’ve got something better!” Bonaire exclaimed, though d’Artagnan’s hand on him kept his eyes toward the wall. “In my bag, a bottle of rum! The colonists make it out of sugar molasses.”

Porthos was nodding before he finished his sentence. Athos retrieved the bottle, uncorking it with practiced ease before handing it to Porthos. She shot Aramis a glance over their sister’s head as she took a huge swallow, and it was the only warning she had before Porthos slumped between them. Aramis caught her as gently as she could and together they laid her on her stomach across the bed so Aramis could work without trial. A quick check under her sister’s eyelids revealed Porthos to be dead to the world, and she sent Athos a grateful look.

“I wouldn’t drink the rest of this,” Athos advised as she reclaimed the bottle and pushed the cork back into the neck. She also discarded a small twist of paper with flicks of herb still clinging to it.

“What did you do?” Bonaire demanded, leaning over to snatch the bottle from her before d’Artagnan shoved him into the wall again.

“It's the best way with Porthos, we’ve learned from experience,” she replied as Aramis threaded her needle. She nodded, for all Bonaire could not see her. Porthos could never stand the feel of her skin being sown back together, though she was riddled with evidence of Aramis’ work.

With one obstacle out of the way, another presented itself. Had they been back in Paris in the privacy of their own rooms, or with more of the regiment she trusted to watch their backs, Aramis would have simply removed Porthos’ corset to work unencumbered. But that was not a luxury they had here. She needed to be careful as she worked around it, taking into account the way it compressed the muscles and flesh of her sister’s back that could in turn cause her needlework to become too tight. Porthos already had a habit of tearing out her stitches without any extra encouragement.

Nonetheless, she liked to think she did a fine job of it with what she had to work with. Porthos would have never been able to bear the idea of sleeping half nude around Bonaire.

d’Artagnan, who had turned himself towards the wall with Bonaire, partly to keep better track of him and partly to give them some semblance of privacy, still seemed interested in her work, and she encouraged his questions. Aramis found she did not mind the idea of two hands skilled at healing in their circle. Heaven only knew the collection of ragged scars she earned from Porthos’ shaky hand or Athos’ uneven stitching.

Speaking of her other sister…Aramis took one eye off her work to glance around the room, and saw that Athos had managed to slip away while she was distracted. That would not do at all. But she had learned over the years that she could not do two things at once, so she set about finishing what her hands had started first.

She closed up Porthos’ stitching with little fuss and bandaged her work before loosely lacing her corset back up. More bandages helped hold the torn fabric together and while it was not perfect, it would do until they returned to Paris. Her sister needed to learn not to move when she was so badly injured anyway. The herbs would keep Porthos under for only a little longer, but it should be enough time to drag Athos back to them. Aramis left d’Artagnan with orders to watch both her and Bonaire, and went in search of her wayward sister.

She found Athos in the tap room, which she could not say surprised her. She wished her sister saw that she was stronger than this, and that the bottles of wine she drowned night after night were only salt in a wound she was refusing to let heal. But Athos never threw stones about her own bad habits, so she usually kept her mouth shut in return. 

She settled onto the bench next to Athos and motioned for another round from the server.

“Is Porthos alright?” Athos asked after they sat in silence for a time. Her eyes did not leave the bottle in there hand but Aramis could see the opening for what it was.

“She’ll heal fine. It takes more than a new scar to bring her down, you know that. I’ve got d’Artagnan watching both her and Bonaire.”

Athos shot her a disbelieving look over the bottle’s rim.

“They'll be fine,” Aramis insisted. Athos did not look reassured.

“This is quite a miserable place,” Aramis commented, eyeing the inn around them as if it encompassed the entire village. And it rightly did. While the inn was well build and cared for, the dark depression that hovered over the entire town was compressed into the four walls around them. “I don’t think we’ve ever been this way before. Can’t say we’ve been missing anything."

She would have continued rambling, but the first chocked sob caught her by surprise, even as she reacted to it. Not looking, because she knew Athos never wanted to be watched when she was like this, she buried her hand into her sister’s shortened hair and pulled her forward. With her face buried in Aramis’ battered red skirts, Athos’ stoicism broke and she started sobbing quietly.

“Shhh,” Aramis whispered, petting back her hair. “Shhh, my dove. I’m here."

“I hate this place,” Athos whispered. “I hate the way it smells. I hate the way the dirt feels under my feet. I hate how cold the shadows under the trees are.”

Aramis could hear the pain in her sister’s voice and pressed down with her hand as if to shove the thoughts from Athos’ head by will alone. Something had happened here, and she thought she had an idea.

But Athos had not told them. And she needed to respect that. Aramis did not respect much, but for her sisters she tried.

“Do you recognize this skirt?” she asked instead. Athos’ hand clutched at the red fabric, but she shook her head into her thigh.

“Its from the robes we found in the church the day we met,” she muttered, idly playing with Athos’ hair. “I kept it, because it was warm, and reminded me of you. I had Constance make it a few years ago.”

She could tell Athos was desperate not to let the cries that were trying to escape her win, and her entire frame shook with the effort. Aramis leaned down, bending almost in two to press her forehead against her sister’s temple.

“I remember when we first met,” she whispered. “You looked like the world had chewed on you for a dozen years before spitting you out and stomping on you for another dozen. I knew you hadn’t had a good run of it before you and I found each other. I knew towns probably chased you out and shunned you. But none of that matters because we did find each other. We found Porthos. We found d’Artagnan. God tested us all and rewarded us for it."

Athos did not look up, but her shoulders had stopped shaking. Her breath hitched under her touch. Aramis was wrapped as tight as she was able to be around her as if that alone would block out the world.

“You don’t have to tell me about this place,” Aramis continued. “But I do want you to know that you can, if you want to.”

She said no more, even as every nerve pushed at her. Porthos had almost died because of what this place had done to Athos, and for that alone she wanted to burn it to the ground and dance on its ashes.

Athos stayed silent, but Aramis expected as much. Her sister would need time to accept the hand she offered. Athos never did anything until she examined it from every angle first. And until then she would be mute. Aramis could not say she was partial to sitting in silent contemplation. It reminded her too much of the nunnery she was driven to escape from years upon years ago. But it was what Athos needed, so she said nothing and let her sister rebuild herself. 

Later, she helped a stumbling, sleepy, slightly drunk Athos back to their room. d’Artagnan was still awake and propped up against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and his long legs stretched out before him. With Porthos on the lone bed, he had taken their packs to create a type of padded floor for himself. He was watching Bonaire from across the room with strict attention. Aramis kicked at his feet to get him to look at her, keeping ahold of the back of Athos’ thick jacket to keep her upright.

“Take him outside,” she ordered, though it came out as more of a quiet plea. She felt her skin crawl at the very thought of Bonaire watching her sisters sleep, but they did not have many other choices available to them. She could at least do this first.

d’Artagnan nodded and unfolded himself. Aramis cringed in sympathy at the sounds his bones made but her little brother was still young enough to bounce back quickly from cold nights on hard floors. Taking Bonaire by the scruff of the neck, he dragged the shabby adventurer outside and Aramis listened for their footsteps trailing down the hall.

Porthos was where she left her, laid across the bed with linen bandages a stark tale against her skin. She was still asleep, and Aramis eased Athos down next to her on the other side of the bed. Athos let out a distressed sound, causing Porthos to shift in her sleep.

“Shhh,” Aramis muttered, petting back Athos’ hair with gentle fingers. She started humming a lullaby she distantly thought her mother had sung to her years ago. She could not recall all the words though, and substituted them with whatever came to mind as she got Athos’ boots and jacket off.

“And the ostrich said to the lion head, the storm’s only miles away from my bed~,”

“That’s not how it goes,” Athos managed to grumble, already half-asleep.

“If you can remember the words, I’ll let you take over,” She sang back. Her sister smiled slightly at her and retreated into the sheets while Aramis tucked her clothes under the bed. Waking Porthos was inevitable, and she slowly stretched out as Athos buried herself in the blankets. Aramis finished up a line about elephants in the sky, smiling at the disbelieving scoff Porthos made.

“Did ya drug me ‘gain?” she asked.

“Not at all, my lovely,” Aramis said. Athos had been the one to drug her anyway, so it was not really a lie.

“Mmmh,” she rumbled around a yawn, taking Aramis’ word at face value. Later on she may question the odd aftertaste in her mouth or the stuffy, cotton feeling in her head, but now she was still too drained to worry about it. She started to reach out and Aramis was quick to still her before she moved too far, lest she pull her stitches.

“Better now?” Porthos asked, nudging Athos next to her. All she got in return was a grumbled swat.

“Yes,” Aramis whispered, working to instill peace in the two people she cared most about, both of whom believed they did not deserve any. “But sleep will help you both.”

“Mmmh, don’t like it here,” Porthos muttered, already falling back to sleep. Aramis was not sure if she meant Athos or herself, but decided it did not matter. God was not with this place. She sang a few more bars of her makeshift lullaby as they drifted.

With her sisters settled and sleeping, Aramis picked her musket up from the corner where it lay and, with a final glance over her shoulder, left. d’Artagnan had Bonaire in the tap room, and he was quick to usher him outside at Aramis’ signal. She grabbed a torch as well, not bothering to as for the permission of the innkeeper. The night air was still cool with the last dregs of winter, and chills rose on her skin almost instantly as she led them into the meadows surrounding the inn.

Spying a tree some distance way, Aramis plucked Bonaire’s hat off his brow and, ignoring his squawk of protest, pinned it to the tree’s trunk with one of her knives. She drove the end of the torch into the ground beside it, and the flickering light illuminated enough of the tree for her purposes. Retreating back to them, she estimated the distance at well over forty paces while she loaded her musket. Shouldering it, she sighted down the barrel, stilled her breath, squeezed the trigger, and put a hole through the center of the hat.

She counted her breaths as she reloaded. It was a trick Tréville had taught her during their first year in the Musketeers when he had wanted her to improve her draw time. She had hated it while he drilled her on her breathing and her counting for hours on end, but now she was grateful for it. It kept her calm and in control.

She was exhaling her third breath when she shouldered her musket again and fired. Another hole appeared in the hat’s fabric. Her hands flew and she counted, and on her second breath she fired again.

She retrieved the hat after that shot and casually dropped it on Bonaire’s brow. The three holes made a neat line right above the wide brim.

“I’m a light sleeper,” she told him. “And the floorboards in front of the door creak.” Aramis almost hoped he did try to escape. She could not say she was feeling particularly merciful at present.

*

How Maria Bonaire caught up to them without their notice bothered Athos greatly. This place was affecting all of their perceptions, and it was making them sloppy. 

“I’m really starting to hate that woman,” Aramis muttered as they watched the Bonaires ride way. 

“Aye,” Porthos agreed, heading for the stable and their horses. d’Artagnan, far more skilled at saddling the beasts with speed than they were, was already at work. 

“Don’t even think about it,” Athos ordered. She saw the rage already building on Porthos’ face, but she held her ground. “You aren’t fit to ride, and you know it.”

“You can’t think I’ll stay back!"

“You’re no use to us right now, Porthos.” Athos knew it was a brutal hit, and the hurt that flashed over her sister’s face threatened to kick up the endless well of guilt that was threatening to flood over Athos’ control. She shoved it all aside to deal with it later, like she always did. 

Porthos would very likely have more words for her about this later, but time was running against them; with every moment wasted they gave the Bonaires more time to put distance between them. So she stood aside as they rode out, and the hunt was on. 

They found Maria, dead and discarded, and two Spanish spies who thought their best course of action was to fire on them as they arrived. 

As d’Artagnan drove his horse down the steep hill after a fleeing Bonaire, Aramis hit one dead in the chest and Athos ran the other through with a neat faint. 

“Your Spanish has improved,” Athos commented after Aramis tried to pull answers out of the dying agent. Aramis flashed her a quick grin as she rose. Queen Anne often missed her native tongue so Aramis (already comfortable with the fundamentals of a language that based itself in Latin) worked to become proficient enough to converse with her when possible. 

d’Artagnan returned after they had stripped and buried the Spanish agents with an unhorsed Bonaire stumbling in front of him. 

“Fool ran his horse down to exhaustion,” he reported to them, rolling his eyes as he spoke. 

“Not all of us can be farm boys,” Bonaire snapped, clearly unhappy about his entire situation. But he saw his wife’s body draped over the saddle of Aramis’ horse, words failed him. His face became closed off. Athos would have possessed more sympathy for him had he not attempted escape so often. This was typically the consequence of an unsuccessful evasion. 

Pointing her rapier at his chest, she nodded behind them. 

“You know the way back."

*

Porthos used to watch the slaves at the docks of the Seine. She barely remembered it, and many of her memories were tainted by age and perception. She did not know how old she had been, thought Aramis and Athos had once tried to help her piece her age together by the events she could remember. If their estimates were right, she would have been about seven or nine. 

She remembered watching the ships and imaging far off lands they could be taking their cargo. She did not understand what the chains meant, or the constant shouting and haggling. Now she knew what was destined for those poor souls, but back then all she had seen was some bizarre show that she did not fully understand the rules too. But she knew she could learn if she watched. She learned a lot by watching people on the street: she watched pickpockets and thieves, traders and guardsmen, nobles and libertines. So watch she did. 

Cheron never went to the harbor with her, but Flea sometimes did. Her little friend had not understood Porthos’ perverse fascination with the docks, but seemed reluctant to leave her alone there. Porthos dismissed their worries. They did not realize what she already had—that she could take on more than they thought her capable of. 

On time, late in the summer heat, she had perched herself on a building roof at the entrance of the harbor and watched as line after line of slaves were led off the great ship moored there. Most of them looked little more alive than dolls, but one caught her eye. She examined him closely; the way his shoulders rippled against the chains that bound him, the way he still carried his head high. He was so different from the rest, and she thought she would not have noticed him at all had he been on the streets behind her. 

She almost was not surprised he made a break for it when he was unhitched from the lead line he was attached to. He must have seen something she had not, because she did not see how he could have gotten away. He was quick to outpace his handlers, but she saw other dangers ahead of him. Guards, large, burly men with heavy truncheons and curdles, were everywhere. She sometimes spent time watching them during her visits, and she could recall the look of their eyes. There was no cruelty there, no driven desire to hurt others. She knew how to spot that look on a person’s face from all the times she encountered it among the filthy streets of Paris. The only look these men had was one of typical workers, men who looked to make sure their jobs were done and to get their pay at the end of each day. It all seemed so normal when nothing else around them was. 

The slave, proud, determined, desperate, and so fast, ran. There was no gap between the guards, but he raced towards them anyway, and Porthos wondered if he meant to fight them off. If he was secretly a famed warrior of pride and legend in his homeland and believed that he stood a chance against armed men when he was nearly naked. She cheered him without thinking, even as Flea tried to press a desperate hand across her mouth to muffle her. 

He only made it a few hundred paces before he was brought down with a brutal hit to his gut. They dragged him back down the docks by his ankles as he moaned and fought every inch. Later, she wondered if he had been running to anything at all. Maybe he had been running from something much, much worst. 

They strung him up on a whipping post and flayed him for all to see. Flea had pleaded with her to leave as they peeled away pieces of him in flabby strips. They meant to use him as an example for the others, to take his pride and his humanity and destroy it before them all. His screams still echoed in Porthos’ dreams some nights. 

She was half way down the docks before Flea managed to grab her and haul her back. 

“You can’t go down there!” she yelled in Porthos’ ear, bodily pulling her away from the docks. 

“Why not!” she yelled back, heedless of any attention being paid them. “They’re hurting ‘em!”

“‘Cause they’ll put you in chains too!” Flea exclaimed, straining to hold her. Already she was larger than Flea, for all they starved almost every night. “Why’d ya think Cheron won’t come?”

The idea shocked Porthos to stillness. She was a Parisian, for all she was a poor one. She did not belong in the docks…

Would the men down there see what, though? She spoke their language, and prayed to their God, but they did not know that. All they would see was the color of her skin. And that was all they would care to know. That was all that concerned them about the man hanging in chains now...

She stopped fighting Flea and was dragged back into the streets of Paris.

She did not go back to the docks after that. But she learned what the chains were there for. She learned the type of scars a whip left on an exposed back. She learned how desperate they all were to get out. How desperate she was to get out. Whenever she thought she could be happy in the Cours de Miracles, she made sure to recall the docks and the suffering souls there. She would never end up in chains. And if she refused to go down, going up was the only direction left to her. She clawed her way out of the gutters while chains and suffering and pain were left behind her with everything else. But she never forgot them.

So when she idly unrolled Bonaire’s papers and schematics, memories decades old were thrown in her face. When he was marched back in the door, she did not remember launching herself at him. 

*

As they rode into Paris, Aramis made sure to keep Bonaire in front of them all. He complained bitterly about the lose of his presents to the king and being forced to ride into the city on a donkey, but Aramis thought it rather suited him. The dirt of the grave they forced him to dig for his wife was still on his clothes, and he had the look of a man who was holding back thinking about anything beyond what was in front of him. 

Behind her, Athos looked like she would rather be anywhere but in his presence and Porthos was one wrong sentence away from beating the man to death. Aramis was grateful for d’Artagnan, who was keenly aware of the tension between them and helped her keep Bonaire separated off. He also kept Aramis from following through with daydreams about dumping Bonaire into the Seine with his hands bound and being done with the matter. It would save the king the effort of condemning him.

She had not immediately understood why Porthos had been so furious upon their return, but she was able gain enough of it as she held her back from killing Bonaire. A glance towards  
the little table that was now littered with plans told her enough.

“It’s alright, my lovely, it’s alright,” she told Porthos continuously, keeping herself in front of Porthos to restrain her while Athos wrapped herself around her good arm to hold her up. “He’ll pay for this, I swear it.”

“Do you know why they get chained down?” Porthos screamed, and Aramis had to close her eyes to keep back the tears at the pain in her voice. “It’s so they won’t jump overboard during the journey! Because they know it’s better than what’s coming!” 

“Please, Porthos, you’ll only hurt yourself more!” 

“He talks about his plantation as if they’re just tools!”

Aramis could not take it anymore. She had just managed to put Athos back together enough to function through the rest of their mission, but for Porthos it was suddenly much, much bigger than that. She could not even pretend to understand the depths of her anger, but she could hold Porthos back until her senses returned. Tréville allowed them a great deal of leeway, but even he would not turn a blind eye if a prisoner in their care arrived dead to Paris.

Grasping her sister’s face in both of her hands, she forced Porthos’ outraged gaze away from the cowing Bonaire to focus on her instead. 

“I swear to you,” she said, putting as much conviction and love and determination into her voice as she knew how to give. “On Christ and his Apostles and everything I hold dear, I will make him pay. He will own no slaves, and he will not know freedom while I live. But please, my lovely, please, hold yourself together for a few days more. We are almost home, and once we are he will rot in a cage for the rest of his life. I swear it.” 

Porthos sobbed under her touch, just once. Aramis pushed their foreheads together, breathing deep and slow to give her sister something to concentrate on besides her rage. At Porthos’ side, Athos, unspeaking but still undoubtably present, held them all upright and steady until the world made sense again. 

Aramis knew that her promise was the only thing that had kept Porthos from killing the slaver where he stood. That justice would be done and that all the suffering this mission had brought them would be repaid. 

Dropping him into the Cardinal’s cambers felt so relieving that she did not even bother trading barbs with Richelieu. She would have loved to have left him to the proverbial lion’s den, but Tréville insisted they stay with prisoners until they were safely handed over to the Swiss or Red Guard or, in rare cases, the guards of the Bastille. So she instead entertained her tired brother and sisters with comments about passerbys they saw from the window of the cardinal’s antechamber. She idly wondered if Queen Anne was occupied. Their queen was a social creature and enjoyed company when not tied to her duty, and they had not presented d’Artagnan to her yet. 

Then Bonaire walked out a free man. The king had not delivered the justice she promised. 

“The cardinal’s agreed to invest ten thousand livres of his own money, and I’m to set up tobacco plantations across the Antilles,” his told them, seemingly as shocked as they were. Porthos did not give him the satisfaction of her anger to his face. That would be for later, in the courtyard of the garrison against opponents skilled enough to fight back. But Aramis knew it was there, and it set her teeth on edge. 

Aramis promised Porthos justice. So when the king and the cardinal did not hand it down, she knew it would have to be a matter she addressed herself. 

*

They were back in Calais, arriving into town with the afternoon sun. Athos could smell the salt in the air and the shrill called in the air in time with the continuously crashing waves. They choose an inn that was far from the one they had stayed at during their last visit. It was a habit that predated their recruitment into the Musketeers—it was more difficult to be tracked when they never slept in the same place twice. They also invested in two beds this time because Aramis was becoming tired of watching d’Artagnan twist himself into contorted shapes on their packs.

“It’s fine,” he had argued earlier. “It’s easy to shake off.”

“Tell that to yourself in fifteen years time when you can no longer stand up straight,” Aramis shot back. Athos left him to his fate. She and Porthos had both been on the receiving end of one of Aramis’ diatribes enough times to know when to keep quiet about this sort of thing. 

Their vibrant sister had dragged d’Artagnan out with her after that, mentioning something about about the docks and old friends. Athos had not been paying a great deal of attention to her words, because she did not want to ask any questions about her plans.

The bed squeaked as she shifted her weight. She had sat Porthos down at the edge of the mattress to better even the differences in their height. She kept her knee planted against Porthos’ thigh, bringing their faces together so she could better see her work. 

“Look up,” Athos ordered, tilting Porthos’ chin towards the ceiling. Leaning down, she carefully drew a thick, straight line on the under edge of Porthos’ eye in kohl. She kept her hand as steady as she could, making sure to cover all the delicate skin in black, then leaned back to apply more pigment to the tiny brush.

“Down,” she commanded after she finished the other eye. Porthos’ eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as she closed her eyes. 

“Could do this myself,” she muttered, not unkindly. Athos shot her a look her sister could not see as she drew thick lines atop Porthos’ eyelids. 

“Aramis becomes unbearable when you mess up her needlework. Let’s not tempt fate,” she suggested. Finishing each eye, she studied her work in the early evening light. 

“Are you going to explore?” she asked. Her voice sounded loud to her own ears. Porthos nodded with her eyes still closed. 

“We don’t come to Calais often. I’d like to see it while I can.” 

“Would you like company?”

Porthos cracked her eyes open just enough to glance at her. 

“You don’t like exploring. Or cities. Or other people.”

Athos did not fidget with the tiny brush that was still in her hand, but she did fiddle with it. She found she could not say all the things that sat heavy in her mind. The past few days had left her feeling raw and awkward in her own skin. She had always been able to push La Fère and André and everything about that part of her life into a hole and ignore it while in Paris. But putting feet back on that land had brought it all to the forefront of her thoughts, and she acted like a desperate animal caught in a trap, clawing to get away no matter the damage she caused around her. She did not know how to make amends for that. 

She was profoundly grateful her sisters had known her long enough to understand her limitations. Words never came easy to her tongue when they started at her heart, and she always stumbled over them when even when she did manage to accept them. Because of them, she felt self-conscious and over-aware of herself, with a deep part of her exposed and waiting, hoping, for someone to accept her for the mistakes she often let overwhelm her. 

“I didn’t…If I made you think that…that I didn’t care about your wellbeing…” she tried. It came out horribly, but Porthos, hurt and angry over everything she had been subjected to in the past few days, still cared enough for her to catch her when she failed. Linking their fingers together in old habit, she smiled reassuringly, at once easing the tension between them. Athos admitted that she clung to it, trying to work out the tangle of words kicking at her teeth. 

“Never crossed my mind,” Porthos told her, though she did look happy at Athos’ effort. As if the attempt of an apology alone was worth the entire mission. The very thought of such instant forgiveness baffled Athos, but her sisters were who they were, just as she was. If they thought she was worth keeping, she would not contradict them. 

Athos knew the relief was clear on her face, even with all her efforts to hide it. Porthos tugged her to her feet and threw Thomas' jacket at her. 

“Let’s go, I want to see the ocean.”

They were well on their way when Porthos, who had been absentmindedly chowing at her lip in thought, bumped her shoulder against Athos’. 

“Think Aramis’s gonna let him get away?” she asked. 

“Only if she believes his alternative to be truly horrific.” 

*

d’Artagnan followed Aramis into the tavern and they kept to the shadows as they spied Bonaire. He was decked out in the finest of silks and satins, mourn his wife’s passing by laying hands on every wench who crossed his way. d’Artagnan wondered if it would be considered treason to simply end him here and be done with it. 

Aramis bumped up against him, pressing her body into his. As he took a breath, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest and the curve from her waist to her hips against his torso. He knew his sister well enough by now to know that it was not so much an invitation as it was a means to get his attention. Aramis had odd thoughts about how other people’s minds worked sometimes. 

“Yes?” he asked, not taking his eyes off Bonaire.

“Stare at him all you’d like, sweetling, you won’t sent him aflame that way,” Aramis responded, winking at him through her eyelashes. Had she been any other woman, d’Artagnan would have instantly traded his attention to her, but even such a short time together had shown him how willing Aramis was to use any means she could to achieve her goals. This was just another one. 

“You never know. God could grant me my wish, just this once.” 

Aramis laughed, light and easy. It was as if the weight of the past week was not sitting on her shoulders, and that she had not a care in the world. d’Artagnan felt suspicion rise within him. 

“What did you do?”

“It’s not what I did do, my knight,” Aramis replied. “It’s what I plan to do.” 

Before d’Artagnan could draw from her exactly what that meant, a fight broke out on the main floor. Bonaire, an easy target in his gaudy clothes and boisterous manner, had drawn the eye of some local rogues. Their scars and weapons spoke to their history, and their willingness to hurt others for their own gain. Bonaire was trying to talk his way out of the situation, but Aramis’ little giggle beside him told d’Artagnan that would not bring him salvation. 

“He’s suppose to be on a ship for the new world come tomorrow,” he commented. “Not dead in a gutter somewhere.” 

“Stop spoiling my fun.”

“Stop trying to disobey the king.”

“The cardinal, not the king. And tell me you weren’t thinking about it,” Aramis shot back. “Besides, he will be on a ship come dawn. Just not to the new world.”

“You’re not as cute as you think you are when you do this,” d’Artagnan told her, but only half-heartedly. Aramis was saved from answering as Bonaire, now with a great many problems in the form of burly men with mean gazes, quickly realized his mouth was not going to get him out of this situation. 

The first punch was thrown and the tension in the room exploded. Bonaire did not so much fight as he did flail, though he managed to get enough lucky strikes in to twist free of the hands grasping for him. He lost his hat and ornate cloak in the fry. He flew for the door, and Aramis dragged d’Artagnan out after him. 

She kept them to the shadows of the building, but Bonaire froze mere steps outside the tavern. He turned slowly on his heels, eyes searching like that of a mouse catching the faintest wisps of a cat. He combed through the darkness until his eyes alighted on them, frozen in their spots at his unexpected alertness. They all stared back at one another for a long moment when someone else came crashing out of the tavern. The noise spooked Bonaire and he turned to made a break for the harbor, running as fast as his boots could carry him. d’Artagnan made to follow him, but Aramis caught his arm before he could get more than a few steps. 

“He’s getting away!” 

“I want him to,” she replied, her face a dazzling array of smiles. But he could still see the calculating look under them. d’Artagnan stilled under her restraining touch. 

“What did you do?”

“Have I told you about some friends I made a few years ago?” 

d’Artagnan felt a smile begin to grow on his lips.

“Are they the kind of friends with swords and tempers?”

“They might just be.” 

Grinning and feeling much lighter, he offered his arm out to his sister and helped her down the dock steps with exaggerated formality. They strolled down the pier as if they were in the gardens of Luxembourg and by the time they reached the massive ships, they found Bonaire trying to escape a ring of rowdy looking sailors. They passed him to and fro like the last meaty bone among a pack of dogs. Another man stood off to the side, his captain’s hat in his hands and his body slumped in relaxed boredom as he observed the brawl. He was tall, with a good deal of dark scruff over a well-defined face and swarthy skin stained with sea salt. He had been lounging against a pile of crates but straightened as d'Artagnan and Aramis approached, smiling a crocked smile.

“‘lo, Aramis,” he greeted, leaning down to kiss her cheek. His hand made to stray down her waist but d’Artagnan made sure his glare stopped it from going any further than that. Aramis pinched at his arm in retaliation. 

“Hello, Gustove,” she greeted. "Find a good haul?”

“It’ll do. Little rat looks to have half the gold of the new world crammed in that warehouse you told us about. We’ve plans to revisit it in a day or so to clean the rest of it out.” 

“Feel free to take what you'd like,” Aramis offered.

“You told him about the warehouse?” d’Artagnan hissed under his breath. “What about Monière?”

“Would you rather Bonaire’s treasures go to a man who condones slavery or to a man who harries the ships of those who do?” Aramis replied unabashed. She turned back to Gustove. "You may have to fight his business partner for it. He has an interest enough to kill for that warehouse.”

"We're reasonable men," Gustove said with a nasty smile. "I'm sure we can explain to him that his interest in his skin is more pressing than his interest in gold."

"I'd take it as a favor if you were less than reasonable explaining that to him and his men," Aramis replied at once, causing d'Artagnan to give her a hard nudge. Athos once warned him that Aramis became vindictive when she was crossed. He took no issue with revenge but watching Aramis arrange the brutalization of the men who hurt Porthos while enjoying Bonaire being thrashed not far away pushed some boundaries, he was sure. 

But then, Porthos was still struggling to move properly, her shoulder restrained by Aramis' stitching. She groused whenever she forgot about it and moved too quickly, eyes tight at the reignited pain. He could yet hear her screams of fury at the revelation of Bonaire’s plantations and the slaves he intended to use to till it. And whatever La Fère meant to Athos saw her wasting most of her night drowning herself in bad wine, and most of her morning throwing it back up again. In his mind's eye he could still see her shaken and withdrawn after her vicious argument with Aramis as d'Artagnan had done his best to keep a bleeding Porthos still. In the face of Aramis' raging fear for their sister's safety, Athos crumbled like a piece of rotted wood. 

"I've never seen you all angry at each other," d'Artagnan muttered as he rode beside Aramis later that day. His sister snorted and kicked at his stirrup harder than she needed to.

"I'm not upset at Athos,” she had told him, though her dark eyes spoke of a determined rage. "I'm angry with whoever made her not want to come to this place. And I'm angry she thinks she can't trust us not to keep our tempers if she told us why." She paused for a moment, chewing at her lip in thought. "And perhaps a little upset at her." 

At the time, d'Artagnan had agreed with Aramis. It seemed foolish that Athos thought so little of her sisters' self control not to trust them with a piece of herself, no matter what it was. But now, as he watched Aramis do her best to hurt a man who had lost his wife, his fortune, his freedom, and very soon his life, he began to wonder if Athos was justified in her concern. 

A loud crack echoed across the water as Bonaire was presented with a particularly brutal blow. d’Artagnan winced at the sound of bones grinding. 

“I haven’t told you the rest of my plan,” Aramis commented, turning away from the fight with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I thought to give him back to the Spanish. They did seem ever so put out about his colonial ambitions."

“Did you tell Athos and Porthos?”

“No. They don’t need to know the details."

“Didn’t you three just rake me over the coals for keeping secrets from you?”

“There’s a difference between not telling us what you’re doing and keeping secrets. They know I’m not letting him go back to his plantations and his slaves. The rest is up to me.”

“They are exactly the same thing!” 

Aramis did not look at all ashamed of herself, but she did fall silent as Gustove shot a glance over his shoulder. 

“You want we should finish ‘em?”

"Spaniards," d'Artagnan prompted when Aramis stayed silent for a heartbeat too long. For all her work, he could tell the offer tempted her. However, with her foolhardy plan started, he would do his best to see it to its conclusion. Bonaire being found beaten to death on the docks would not convince anyone that the Spanish had managed to abscond with him. She pressed her lips together hard enough to turn the skin around her mouth white with pressure, but nodded nonetheless.

"Sorry, Gustove. Other plans for him. Think you can herd him towards a ship he needs to catch?" 

"Easy as rigging up a square knot.” d’Artagnan had no idea how easy a task that was, but Aramis smiled a sweet smile at the corsair.

“You’re a true gentleman, Gustove.” 

Laughing, Gustove barked some orders at his men, and Bonaire was allowed to escape the bullring, stumbling as he was chased down the docks by brawny sailors twice his size. They herded him along with whooped cries and taunts as they all raced towards a distant ship with white sails and no flags. 

Nodding to them both, Gustove followed after them, whistling to himself as he went. Aramis said nothing for a while, so d’Artagnan nudged her, more gently this time. 

"Let's get out of here.” He drew her back down the docks, keeping their pace leisurely. Aramis was distracted enough that he was sure he could walk her right off the pier without her noticing. 

“Can we leave tonight?” he asked after a time. 

“Hmm?” 

“Is there any reason to stay in Calais tonight? Or can we leave?” The sooner they were back in Paris, the sooner his sisters would be back to normal. Aramis smiled at him, tired and warm in equal parts. 

“I think we can manage that."

They did not find them at their sisters at the inn, but they did find a hasty note pointing them in the right direction. Porthos’ abilities to explore were limitless, so it took them some time to find she and Athos along the beach. Once they had managed to drag her away from the rocky cliffs just outside the garrisons, Aramis convinced her not-quite-a-pirate friends to ferry them and their horses to Le Havre. She claimed it was because the sea was sending a bad storm into Calais that would follow them down the road to Paris. d'Artagnan knew it was actually because Porthos loved the sea, from the smell of salt in the air to the sound of waves crashing against ships. It was because the road from Le Havre to Paris did not pass by a tiny, ruined town with a burned down mansion that terrified Athos.

And Aramis, as d'Artagnan was quickly learning, adored making her sisters happy. 

*

As was the way of ports, when one ship sailed out, another sailed in.

It was a fast ship, and bore none of the grandiose marks that usually signified nobility on board. It flew under English colors, and crept into the harbor during the dead of night along with the fog. 

One of the dockhands roping in the quiet ship, talkative since he never saw a reason not to be friendly, nodded to the man who disembarked. He was dressed like a noble in dark finery, but he moved like a shadow. 

“Heading home, sir?” the dockhand asked cheerfully, not paying particular attention to the man so much as he was to the comfortable familiarity of words. 

Pale eyes turned on him, touched with a bit of insanity and dancing like the devil. The man had dark hair that was a messy sweep across his forehead from the sea winds, and he bore himself with fluid grace. The scar running along the side of his cheek and down his chin only added to his predatory air. 

“Why yes,” the man replied. “I’m sure my family has been missing me. It’s been so long since I’ve been home.”

The dockhand nodded as he tied his post off. 

“Right you are, sir. My own wife raises hell when I ain’t been home in days. Then again, she also raises hell when she's to deal with me for longer than a fortnight."

“Indeed. Women are often variable.”

“Ain’t they? Safe travels, Milord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And André is in play!  
> I really hoped you liked it! I addressed some parts of this episode that really bothered me, like emotional pay-offs and apologies for some of the shit that happened all around.  
> Side researching rant:  
> The show says that the port city in the episode is La Havre, however looking at map i cannot think of any way you would cross through La Fère on your way from La Havre to Paris. I get that the show is not tied to geography the way the written word is, so i don't feel bad about putting them in Calais instead, at which point passing through La Fère becomes extremely reasonable.  
> Also, if anyone knows what treaty Bonaire violated, pls let me know. I could not find any treaty pertaining to the Antilles or the New World between France and Habsburg Spain, especially since the French were attempting to colonize it since around 1541. Bonaire was not the first of his kind.


	3. The Good Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rain roused her. It was cool against her skin, dragging her back to the realm of the living with a taunting touch. Aramis blinked rapidly to bring her vision into focus, and she took careful stock of herself. Pushing her palms into the gritty, quickly dampening dirt below her, she levered herself up and tried to ignore the pounding in her skull. Her breath was short in her lungs and everything spun around her. 
> 
> She needed to move.

“Here, captain.”

Tréville shifted off the wall he was leaning against and caught the mirror as Aramis slung it at him. She must have taken it off one of the palace walls, since the ornate craftsmanship was not out of place in the finery around them. It was a moderate size, set in a gold frame with filigree wrought in delicate leaves and flowers. He fumbled for a moment to get a better grasp on it then held it up for Aramis to study herself in its reflection. He peered over the top as Aramis carefully applied a layer of deep red stain to her lips with quick precision.

“What-” 

“I didn’t know the Cardinal was going to be here.”

“Is this necessary, Aramis?” Tréville asked in a weary tone, though he did not lower the mirror. It was all the encouragement Aramis needed as she worked in the stain.

“It’s completely necessary. Every conversation is a battle with that man, and I’ll be damned if I go into one without my armor.” 

Tréville knew her well enough to not be surprised with her methods. Far be it for him to disparage a strategy that proved sound. The king and cardinal were in counsel together, and as much as Tréville desired to know their discussions, there were aspects of ruling he could offer no hand in. However, private meetings placed him at a disadvantage, consigning him to tedium while Richelieu took the opportunity to plant seeds of intrigue he could not prepare for. His best piece in their game was Aramis, so he allowed her to arrange herself as she saw fit. 

“Going to try and beat your record?” he asked, squashing the amusement he felt at her preparations. Aramis shot him a quick smile. She once managed to chase the cardinal from the room in around five minutes, and was trying to best her time ever since. Tréville told himself that he would not smile. He would not. It would only encourage her. 

Though he would admit watching the cardinal turn as red as his robes never failed to brighten his day. 

“He doesn’t know if he wants to bed me or banish me. Would you have me disappoint his expectations,” Aramis asked, touching off the last of her lips. Inspecting the small tube with a critical look, she sighed and tucked it away. “This color looks better on Porthos. Still, needs must.” 

Tréville was curios as she returned to inspecting her reflection. He was rarely able to watch Aramis reconstruct herself. She took a step back from the mirror and reached around to tangle her fingers amongst the laces of her light blue corset. She was dressed in a thin white shirt worn sheer with age under it, the top of which peeked out at her bust and draped off her arms to reveal her shoulders and collar bone. She took a deep breath, pulled the laces of her corset incredibly tight, and shifted her posture. The bend of the material drew attention to her now prominent breasts and her holster belt slipped down to her hips at the dramatic reduction of her waist. She held her breath as she tied the laces off tighter, then started to fuss with her skirts. They appeared fuller when she finished, and their dark brown color brought attention to the flare of her hips. 

Tréville raised an eyebrow as she pulled her hair out of the messy bun it was tied in.

“What did I just witness?”

“A performance no other Musketeer in your regiment could achieve,” she told him with a wicked smile. She stuck the pins in her mouth while she rearranged her deep waves of hair, setting it neater and higher on her head. Tréville thought she would have left it down until he noticed the view from her eyes to her breasts was now only encumbered by the straps of her corset. The way she held herself made it impossible not to follow the line of her throat downward. She knew how to play the game better than he did. 

She finished as the door opened and the guard allowed them into the king’s presence. He did not miss how the man gawked at Aramis, who sent him a daring wink when she noticed. He was caught off-guard when Tréville handed him the mirror with a short nod. 

“Be a good fellow and return this to where it needs to be,” he ordered as they passed. 

As they came before the king Tréville’s bow was efficient, even abrupt. Thankfully Aramis’ elegant curtsy made up for it. Tréville recalled her mimicking Athos over and over during their first months in the regiment until she could perform it well enough to outclass most nobles. 

“Ah, Tréville,” the king greeted with airy inattention. “I know you’ve been waiting. We were just discussing international affairs.”

“I’m sure there’s much to discuss, Your Majesty,” Tréville replied, careful not to smirk as Aramis shifted beside him. Richelieu kept his stare firmly in place over Tréville’s shoulder, but he could see faint spots of color on his pale cheeks. Aramis’ transformation had not gone unnoticed. 

“Quite, captain. In a week’s time, the Duke of Savoy will be paying us a visit, as well as my sister and their eldest son. We’ve just finished tying up a treaty that will bring Savoy under our thumb and out of Spanish hands for good.” The king looked thrilled at the idea of tweaking King Phillip’s nose. 

Tréville could almost pinpoint the moment the light went out in Aramis. It was about the same time he felt guilt and panic set in on his own conscious. Forcing it down, he channeled all his self control into keeping a calm facade.

“I hadn’t expected the charms of Paris to draw the duke from his duchy,” he settled on as he strove to balance himself. Permanent relations with Savoy would make the wars with Spain over the land in northern Italy easier to dominate. However Victor Amadeus, the Lion of Susa, was a touchy man with a high-flung sense of honor and only a brittle control on his temper. Relations with Savoy had been tense for quite some time, and it was worth considering that this treaty could be an olive branch for them all. 

He also did not believe for a moment that the duke had forgotten the supposed assassination attempt against him five years ago that ended in one of his top advisors missing. Tréville had twenty graves in his cemetery that reminded him daily. If he would not forget it, Aramis certainly would not. 

To the end of it all, Tréville was a good solider and he knew how to compartmentalize. Before it grew out of control, he bundled up all his guilt and panic and shunted it deep into a pit away from his attention. To keep it there, he instead focused on the conversation around him. 

“Surely your men will be prepared for the duke’s visit next week?” Richelieu asked, and Tréville briefly entertained the notion of punching his teeth down his throat. The smug bastard planned this, he was sure. For all that Savoy was a dark stain on all their souls, the man seemed thrilled at the idea of dragging Tréville into his world of whispers and secrets. 

“My Musketeers are always prepared,” he replied with icy certainty. The king was satisfied with his assurance and moved on before he and the cardinal could trade any more barbs. 

“Tell him about England as well, Richelieu. I don’t want us so focused on one enemy that we forget another.” 

“Yes, Sire,” the cardinal groused at being forced to reveal more of his precious information, but Tréville worked hard to ensure the king kept him abreast of any military decisions. And he was thrilled for anything that moved them away from the powder keg that was Savoy. “We're receiving reports that the Duke of Buckingham is beginning to make contact with the Huguenots in La Rochelle. I believe this stems from our…failed negotiations during the siege of the city.”

“How did you uncover this?” The English court was littered with lies and scandals, and it was often difficult to detangle fact from myth. Richelieu’s face hardened at his question, but at the king’s urging answered him. 

“I took the liberty of planting an agent into the English court some years ago. He recently returned with a wealth of information on their activities." 

“Who?”

“You expect me to reveal the identity of one of my most valuable agents simply because you demand it?"

“Yes, I do. Especially when his information could lead to another siege of La Rochelle.” Or another Savoy. Tréville learned what trusting the cardinal’s spies without a thought to his own soldiers could lead to. 

“Yes,” the king muttered. “You didn’t tell me his name, Cardinal.”

Richelieu did not appreciate being backed into a corner, but Tréville could spare no prayer for the man’s comfort. 

“The Comte de la Fère, who has acted as my eyes and ears in the English court for over half a decade now,” Richelieu explained to their king. 

"La Fère," the king commented, chewing the name over. "I don’t believe I’ve met the man. Has he been presented to me?"

"No, Sire," Richelieu replied. "He resided in London for some time before I made contact with him.”

Tréville did not immediately recognize the name either, though he thought he should. He glanced sideways, hoping Aramis’ memory proved sharper but she had lost interest in the proceeding. Her shoulders were slumped and her breathing was quick and short to his ear. Tréville bit back a curse. He had been a soldier long enough to recognize what was happening to her. 

“What do you know of La Fère?” Tréville asked, hoping to draw her back to him. Her knowledge of the noble class and political landscape did not quite rival Athos’, but she surprised him with her insights before. However, she was as unresponsive as a wall with her eyes glazed over and her face slack. Tréville internally sighed. He would get nothing else from her today. 

La Fère, La Fère...memories began to kick up in his mind. He distantly remembered a Robert de la Fère, whom he thought to be an efficient officer and an excellent swordsman. They had met, he recalled, during a Huguenot uprising not far from Rohan some decades ago; he as an up-and-coming solider, Robert as a representation of the noblesse d’épée loyal to the king and his edicts. He felt a passing regretfulness when he heard of the man’s passing some years ago. Competent noblemen were difficult to find, and Robert had not tolerated the frivolity that plagued the nobility. 

Robert liked to make much of his son…Toulouse, Thomas, Tristan, he could not quite bring him to mind. Had the boy gone to London after Robert passed? He did not think it likely. La Fère was an old and venerated name, and by consequence of that it was able to acquire much that a common man could not in Paris. London would not be so welcoming to an outsider and a Frenchman. 

It had taken a great deal of practice, but over the years Tréville learned to keep his mind running down two separate lanes. One lane, dark and filled with pot holes and ended with Aramis, who was little more than his shadow beside him. Her usual vibrant presence was shrunken down to a pale husk. Tréville wondered if Richelieu planned it that way. He could not dismiss Aramis (and his desires for her) from his sights, so he found another way to silence her. 

Once the audience concluded, Tréville dismissed her to return to the garrison even though his work at the palace was not finished. He worried to let her go alone, but he knew Aramis would not take well to others prying into her emotions. Even her sisters’ questions were only indulged to a point. She would reach out when she was ready.

Tréville wondered if Aramis would ever piece the events of Savoy together in their entirety. She was sharp enough to, should she ever turn her attention to it. He had hoped it to be behind her, however the past hour proved him wrong on that. He needed to keep her away from the duke for the duration of his visit. 

He sometimes considered the fallout of his ladies discovering the truth behind the mission to Savoy. If Aramis were ever given a reason to look deeper he doubted anything could stand in her way until she found answers. Part of his concern was based in the possibility of all three of them abandoning the Musketeers if his hand in Savoy was ever revealed. Apprehension haunted him at the thought. 

Sighing, he pushed it all aside. He was granted a week to untangle Savoy and all its implications. If God favored him, Duke Amadeus would stay in Paris for only a short time before fleeing back to his duchy. And the Duke of Buckingham was starting to cause problems again...

He could ask Athos about La Fère. She was more aware of the movements and whereabouts of the noble class, and had little trouble recalling such things. Tréville thought it silly she strove to hide that side of her. 

Tréville’s instincts about kicked a hole through his skull with how loudly they screamed. He stumbled to a halt with the force of it. He did not allow himself to doubt his instincts, but let his feet decide his direction. He trusted his instincts with his life. They were how he managed to beat his way up from a small town in Gascony to captain of the King’s Musketeers, how he earned three devoted daughters and hundreds of loyal sons, and how he combated his enemies time and time again. 

Tréville also knew he was focusing on a remote possibility to push Savoy and its implications and challenges from his mind. But that did not stop him from pursuing it. 

The hereditary archives were hard find tucked deep into the bowels of the Louvre. (probably since nobles disliked being reminded of the origins their families as many of them reached nobility through illegitimate, extremely brutal means). Contrary to that, with over nine thousand ennobled families in France records needed to be kept and pedigrees preserved. Empires hinged on the records of the archive. 

Jean-Eustace Renard acted as the herald and librarian of the archives. He was an ancient man, with a crooked back and thin spectacles perched on a hooked nose. His hair was finer than thread, and he looked chalk white from all his time in the shadows of the archives. Tréville did not often speak with the man, but now he held a secret Tréville wanted confirmed. 

“Captain,” he muttered, his voice crinkled and delicate like an aged piece of paper. “What can I do for you?” 

“Tell me about La Fère,” he requested, refusing to let his thoughts get ahead of him while the old librarian shuffled off. If he was wrong, which was entirely possible, any worry would be for not. He was not a child, and he would not let his imagination get away from him. But he did not think he was wrong. 

Jean-Eustace returned at a shuffling pace and dropped a thick, dusty tomb on the table between them. Flipping through it, he humming tunelessly, the sound grating on Tréville’s anxious nerves. 

“Here we are,” Jean-Eustace proclaimed. “Henry de Fère was titled Henry I, Comte de la Fère with the crowning of King Hugh-,”

“May we skip to more recent generations?”

Jean-Eustace gave him a disapproving look over his thin glasses, but flipped forward all the same. 

“Robert III, Comte de la Fère, passed in 1619. The title was inherited by his only son, Thomas X, who himself passed in 1623. The title is currently held by his elder sister, Oliva de la Fère.”

“She inherited?” Salic law prohibited inheritance through the female line. As he understood it, the title should have transferred to her closest male relative. Or her husband. 

Jean-Eustace’s mouth twitched as he read on. “The La Fère line is close to extinct. The closest male relative is in the house of Lorraine, and where he to inherit, the Duke of Guise would find himself quite close to Paris.” He looked abashed for a moment. “La Fère is old, but not very influential. More providential towns will often…overlook Salic law if it means the land stays with the family who built it, and historically the crown would not dispute such a minor title.”

“Is she married?” Tréville suspected he knew the answer, but suspicion only took him so far. 

“Of course,” Jean-Eustace sounded offended by the question. Of course, Tréville thought cynically. There was no such thing as an unmarried French heiress. Jean-Eustace consulted his tomb again. “She was wed to Lord André de Winter in 1621.”

“I don’t recognize the title.” 

Jean-Eustace’s face took on a distant look. “Nor do I. Perhaps it’s an English one. It would be plausible as to why La Fère stayed in her name if so.” The only thing more distasteful than the Duke of Guise at Paris’ doorstep would be a toad of King Charles.

Tréville felt certainty settle heavy in his soul like lead. He found his ladies in the autumn of '24, and they confessed to wondering together for over a year before they came to him. It would put them meeting in time with Thomas de la Fère’s death…

Which made André de Winter the Comte de la Fère, spy of the Cardinal Richelieu. And his quiet, tortured, noble Athos the Cometesse de la Fère. Tréville could already feel the headache growing between his eyes in blinding pressure. 

“You will tell no one of my visit here,” he ordered Jean-Eustace. “And you will give me all records pertaining to La Fère.”

Jean-Eustace protested violently. His life was the preservation of this precious knowledge, but Tréville was insistent. If he thought to check the archives, others would as well. He left with a stack of books tucked under his arm with plans to lock them away in his office and out of sight from curious, prying souls.

It was all speculation, of course, but...Athos’ noble blood was one of the worst-kept secrets of the Musketeers, and it was clear she was running from something. A disagreeable husband was a hard thing for any woman to escape from, and she was more stubborn than most. As well he began to compare Athos to Robert in his mind and saw a great deal of similarity in their styles and convictions. Robert had also been overly fond of the bottle when he was melancholy, and Tréville noticed the behavior tended to run in families. 

His first instinct was to tell Athos, and quickly. She would need time to prepare herself for any confrontation should it come to that. It rightly could if the man enjoyed the cardinal’s backing. However, his second instinct rolled in close behind and it firmly told him to ignore his first instinct. The more he deliberated it, the more he understood the value of keeping quiet. 

His first instinct did not take his other ladies into account. He tried to imagine Porthos and Aramis’ reactions at the mere potential of losing Athos, and every avenue he traveled down led to places he was not comfortable entertaining. They unfolded before him one by one. 

Athos could find out and finally succeed in drowning herself in a bottle. Athos could find him and confront him, only to have him exert his authority over her as her husband. Or kill her. Tréville had the impression their marriage was not well. Aramis and Porthos could find out, pack Athos and everything they deemed important up in the dead of night, and run. Aramis and Porthos could out, leave the Musketeers (because there was no way Tréville could sanction what would essentially be an assassination) and kill him. Aramis and Porthos could find out, confront him, and get killed by him, at which point Athos either killed him or herself. The rest of the Musketeers could find out, and he would have a raging mob of protective and impulsive men in his garrison as opposed to a structured, well-trained batch of soldiers.

None of these outcomes particularly appealed to Tréville.

He recognized that there was a chance he was overreacting. There was a good possibility his ladies would conduct themselves like the levelheaded, practical women he knew them to be. They would see that instinctive behavior triggered by fear, rage, and panic would not benefit any of them. They would see that they had powerful allies in Tréville himself and in the queen. 

Like an oozing wound Savoy flared to life, dragging endless pain and guilt with it.

He remembered watching Athos and Porthos ride out as if the devil bit at their heels five years ago, knowing he may never see any of them again. He had no doubt his ladies would defend each other to death and beyond, no matter what he, the queen, or God himself commanded. No matter how well they fit into the Musketeers, he knew they would abandon it all if it meant they would be safe. A good commander knew to never give an order if he believed it would not be obeyed. The same was true for information, and the outcomes of it.

Decision made, Tréville tucked the books deeper into his side and sharpened his sights against new threats. 

*

Aramis felt cold. It was the middle of August with the sun beating down on her face and raising sweat on her skin, but she still felt cold. Good Friday five years ago had been frigid and frost-touched. Her heart started to pound when she began to see snow falling out of the corner of her eye. The scars she earned that morning, long healed and often forgotten, now felt fresh and new and she could not take a breath without feeling the pain of them. 

She never remembered what happened. Not exactly. She remembered the morning light adjacent the thin snow, and the screams when they started. She remembered stabbing someone in the eye with a knife Athos had thrust into her belt before she had ridden out. But she did not remember everything.

She was so tired. 

Aramis did not notice the shadows shifting as she passed a side alley, so she was taken by surprise when a pair of hands grabbed her and dragged her backward. Her inattention put her at a disadvantage, and she fought to free herself with less grace than she normally possessed. 

A thin blade came to rest across her throat, stilling her movements. 

“Calm yourself, woman,” ordered a voice from the past. Aramis felt her blood run cold through her veins. 

“Marsac?”

She was released and roughly turned around. Familiar blue eyes stared back at her over a threadbare scarf. 

“So they let you keep your spaulder after all,” he commented, eying her from nose to heel. Aramis was moving before her mind caught up to her body’s decision. Porthos knew how to land a punch with power behind it. Aramis once saw her knock the teeth out of the skull of someone with just one brutal blow. As she swung, she liked to think her sister would have been proud of her when her fist struck across Marsac’s cheek. He stumbled back into the stone of the wall behind him, shock written across his face while he nursed his jaw. Not wasting the time his space gave her, Aramis drew her pistol before he was an arm’s length away. She pointed it at him without a second thought, her heart in her throat as he straightened and looked at her with dead eyes. 

“You can shoot me if you’d like,” he said. “But then you’ll never know who killed our friends.”

A wave of disbelief rose within Aramis. Had those words truly come out of his mouth? 

“Where have you been?” 

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It really does.” 

“I know who attacked us,” Marsac repeated, his face cast in a determined light. There was something obsessive in his eyes, and Aramis could only watch as it locked on her and intensified to higher heights. He took a step towards her, but the barrel of her pistol touched his chest as a reminder to tread lightly. “You need to help me prove it. You need to help me avenge our friends.”

“I don’t need to do anything. You need to present yourself to Tréville and explain where you’ve been. Maybe if you plead long enough, he won’t subject you to the punishment of a deserter.” Aramis almost hoped Tréville let her shoot him anyway. Her control, already stretched thin by snow and blood, was at its breaking point and she had nothing left to give but rage and revenge. 

Marsac’s face transformed, both shattering and hardening with each shaky breath he took. 

“I’ll not explain myself to him,” he muttered. “And you have to help me. I saved you.”

Aramis nearly shot him dead for that. Her outrage must have shown in her face because Marsac deflated, his shoulders slumping.

“I’m sorry, Aramis. I’m sorry…I know it wasn’t easy for you. That’s why I dragged you out of the fight. Tréville never should’ve sent you with us. You didn’t belong there. None of you did.”

He was trying to make her feel better, she considered distantly over the loud rushing in her ears. He did not understand her, but he was trying in his own misguided way. It put one mystery to bed at least. She never understood why Marsac, who had been one of the best soldiers in the regiment and also one of the most vocal opponents to she and her sisters, had dragged her into the bushes while others had died around her. He thought he had been doing the chivalrous thing in saving her. 

She lowered her pistol and Marsac slumped back against the wall. Taking her first real look at him, she could see he was not well off. He looked worn and cracked, like clay left out in the sun for far too long. If she were to guess, he had not bathed in months. Under his layers of threadbare, filthy clothes, he looked starved. His eyes were bright and haunted. 

She remembered Athos looking much the same when she had stumbled out of an abandoned church over seven years ago. Ragged and haunted, she still possessed something within her that had drawn Aramis close and tied her tightly to her sister. Athos had desperately needed someone to reach out and pull her back to humanity, and Aramis could not have turned from her in that moment, or any moment since. It was possible Marsac needed the same thing. 

And it was also possible he could answer questions Aramis had been asking herself for years. Decision made, she stepped back. 

“What do you need from me?” she asked, returning her pistol to its holster as a sign of peace. Marsac looked at her as if she offered him salvation. Maybe she had. 

“I knew you’d help!” he exclaimed, swooping in to grab her around her waist before Aramis could stop him. He raised her off her feet to spin her around in his adulation, ignoring her protests. She clung to him since the alternative was to be flung across the alley, but she was grateful when he put her down. Then, her boots barely back on the dirt, Marsac’s hands pushed her back against the stone, pressing close to loom over her. He wrapped one hand around the nape of her neck, the other on her waist and leaned close, his breath heavy against her skin. She planted her hands on his chest to stop what was coming next, but he ignored them and ducked to press a deep kiss on her lips. His fingers skimmed against the bottom edge of her corset, following the fabric back to the laces that kept it tied closed.

Aramis did not share her bed with Musketeers. No matter how attractive the man, she knew that kind of behavior led to ugly things. The men of the regiment had enough experience with camp followers to understand as well. Dalliances with men who watched the backs of her and her sisters was the kind of short-sighted thinking could easily destroy the fragile web they all had spun for themselves in Tréville’s unit. 

So she never laid with Musketeers. Though once in a while, a new recruit or a drunken fool attempted to push her on it. Aramis possessed a wide array of ways to deal with those who believed ‘no’ meant ‘try harder’. Some ways were subtle, others were not. 

Marsac stilled the moment the blade of her knife came to rest against his neck. 

“Don't believe that I’m helping you out of misguided affection for you,” she whispered to him. “I’m doing this to discover who attacked us. No other reason. Keep your hands to yourself.”

Marsac raised his hands and took a step away from her. The haunted look returned to his face, and for a moment he looked as if he was as worn and beaten down as she felt inside. 

She should walk away. She should tell Tréville that Marsac had returned to Paris and hide away in the garrison barracks with her sisters to dye her nails and clean her weapons until Savoy was once again a distant memory. She would be happier that way. But she knew she bore her own scars from Savoy. The nightmares still haunted her. She spent countless hours wondering what could have happened had Porthos or Athos been sent in her place. Marsac very likely saved her because he liked the shape of her body and the look of her face. Would he have saved her sisters? She lost part of her soul to Savoy, and all it had done was make her realize the loss could have been much greater. 

She had no power to change the past, but she could make those who subjected her to her nightmares and her fears and her pain pay. 

“You said you knew who attacked us.” she whispered. “Start there.” 

“It was Tréville. He betrayed us."

*

All Constance could do was stare at Aramis and the shabby traveler standing beside her. He looked like one of the vagabonds she saw curled up in corners at the morning markets with begging bowls set out at their feet. 

“What did you do?” It seemed to be the best place to start. Aramis gave her a blinding smile in return, which Constance long ago learned was never followed by good things. 

"This is Marsac. He's...a cabinet maker.”

“Is he? How excellent timing, my cabinets are in atrocious need of repair.” 

A look of terror dawned on Marac’s face at her words, countering Aramis' endearing smile. However, It did not reach her eyes, which worried Constance. Aramis smiled with her entire being and did not believe in not giving all of herself over to her emotions. 

“Your cabinets are as well-tended as the rest of your house, my dear,” Aramis told her. “I’m come to steal your boarder.” 

Constance stepped back from her threshold to let them in, and Aramis shoved Marsac into a chair found just off her foyer. 

“Don’t move, don’t touch anything.” Constance heard her hiss.

“Do you think me a child?” Marsac snapped at her. Constance braced for Aramis to rip him apart for the tone he used towards her, but the other woman simply shrugged and pushed him back down when he tried to rise. 

“One of your strays, Aramis?” Constance asked under her breath. She rather hoped not. The man looked possessed. 

“In a way. Could you get d’Artagnan? I need him to watch Marsac.”

“Don’t trust your cabinet maker?” 

Aramis’ mouth quirked downward, but she did not answer. 

“I won’t mind keeping him here for you.” And she would not. Aramis looked frazzled and distracted, and that concerned Constance. Aramis never liked to appear as anything but effortless. “He can stay here.”

“He’s not staying,” Aramis relied immediately. “I have a place for him already. I just need d’Artagnan to watch him for a bit.”

Constance wondered if she would ever discover many bolt holes her friends had tucked away throughout Paris. Knowing Athos' paranoia, Porthos' resourcefulness, and Aramis' protectiveness, it was not likely, but she still wondered. 

She also wondered if Aramis realized how evidently she showed her discomfort. It drove her to distraction that Aramis never asked for help in the typical notion of it all. Often, she instead used their presence to advance her plans and thanked them for it well after the fact. Constance could already see it playing out before her. 

“It’s alright if you need me to. I won’t mind.” It was the best she could do to get Aramis to reach out to her. But her message did not appear to reach Aramis, who merely shook her head.

“I don’t trust him in your house.”

“Yet you’re trusting him with whatever it is you’re doing?” 

“What we’re doing don’t require trust. Just cooperation.” 

Constance pursed her lips. She saw what Aramis was doing, even if Aramis herself did not. This was not the first time the beautiful woman decided to keep secrets rather than share her plans. Constance did not understand how Athos and Porthos put up with it as often as they did. 

Speaking of...

“Are Athos and Porthos helping you?” 

“Of course.” 

Sighing, Constance let the matter go. For all her cheer, Aramis was one of the most stubborn of God’s creations. She also decided not to point out to Aramis that she smiled a particular sad smile when she lied. 

*

The Duke of Savoy graced the court of Paris with his charms for only four days thus far, but already Porthos was sure she could stab him in the eye and be heralded as a hero of France for it. She had encountered more egoistical men in her life, but she was hard pressed to think of who they were every time the duke opened his mouth. Judging by the faces of those around him, she was not alone. 

He dismissed Athos and her immediately upon discovery of who they were, and even though Tréville insisted on keeping them close at hand the duke was not subtle in his displeasure. During his short stay, he amused himself with barbed comments about Porthos’ size and stature or Athos’ emotionless face, both of which he seemed to view as insults to nature and heaven. Porthos in turn entertained herself with imagining his decapitated head on a spike or his body twisted under the hoofs of his horse. It never failed to put a smile on her face. The duke’s insults were nothing she had not heard before. 

It also helped her keep her mind off Aramis. She expected (and had been fearful of) her sister slumping back into the deep depression that first overtook her upon her return from Savoy. Indeed, when the duke’s visit was first announced, Aramis retreated away, but unlike before she was now impossible to pin down. Months after Savoy, it had been a struggle to convince her to leave the bed, let alone the garrison walls. This time, she vanished like a ghost in the night. Porthos did not think she could be more frustrated and helpless than she had been five years ago watching Aramis shut herself away from them and from life, but the building worry she experienced at a missing Aramis managed to trump it. 

“Has she spoken with you?” Porthos asked Athos while the duke argued his stance with the king and cardinal. Porthos thought he was rather aggressive for someone in France to sign a peace treaty. 

“You expect me to sign a one-sided treaty without any discussion to my interests?” the duke raged. Porthos tuned him out. 

“You know Aramis would rather cut her tongue out of her skull than admit she’s struggling,” Athos replied, and Porthos reluctantly had to agree. Aramis refused to leave either of them alone in their misery, but whenever her own demons and terrors returned to haunt her, she addressed them with as much solitude and introversion as was possible. She acted as if her suffering was a burden to them. 

“You came to Paris to sign this treaty,” Richelieu countered. “Further delay is in no one’s interest.” 

“Should we try an' find 'er?” Porthos asked under her breath. She felt uneasy at the idea of leaving Aramis to her black mood alone, but for the life of her she could think of no way to help.

“I don’t know,” Athos replied after a moment, echoing Porthos’ uncertainty. They both relied on their vibrant sister to maneuver the complexities of the heart and soul, and without her they floundered at approaching the delicate topic. “She may want to be left alone."

“I will duel her,” the duke declared abruptly, waving his hand in Athos’ direction. Porthos blinked; she was not sure what transpired while she was distracted, but the duke looked ready to burn down all of Paris in his anger. Athos’ face did not so much as twitch at his challenge, but Porthos straightened as she glared back at the man. “If your little doll can beat me, we will discuss the treaty. If I triumph, I return home, immediately.”

Porthos could have sworn she felt the temperature of the room drop like a stone. She often marveled at Athos’ ability to keep her emotions off her face. She gracefully inclined her head at Tréville’s questioning look, and did not argue when he gave his assent to their nervous king. 

“Keep him here,” Tréville ordered her quietly. “But remember that he outranks everyone in this room aside from the king. Be honorable.” 

“When am I ever not?”

Quite a few occasions came to Porthos’ mind, but she kept them to herself as she helped Athos out of her heavy jacket. Tréville did not share her restraint and instead bestowed Athos with an unamused look. 

“When you become discontent with people who question you. Keep your temper, Athos.”

Porthos bit her tongue between her teeth and took Athos' belt and weapons as well, knowing her sister would never trust them with anyone else. The duel would be entertaining at least. And their king loved to be entertained. 

*

Marsac’s information, it turned out, came from a member of the Savoy entourage. In a dusty cellar under a slow tavern, he had the man strung up by his wrists. His face bore bruises from what she could only assume was previous conversations with Marsac. He looked half-starved and none too coherent. Aramis disapproved on a professional level. There were easier, less messy ways to get their information. 

“I see your interrogation techniques haven’t changed overly much in the last five years,” she commented, meeting Marsac’s glare with a raised eyebrow. 

“It got me the information I wanted,” Marsac snapped back. He slapped the man hard across the face. “Tell her what you told me.”

“What, your little bed warmer gets wet from hearing 'bout how we slaughtered those baby Musketeers in their sleep?” the soldier tried to snarl, but there was a wheezing rattling that lingered around his words. Marsac slapped him again, and the man’s head bounced against the wall.

“Show some respect,” he roared. Aramis thought that was rich coming from him, but said nothing. Instead, she perched herself on a pile of oddities and watched with a calculated eye as Marsac circled the man like a hungry panther. 

"You're not going to get much more out of him if you keep doing that," she commented after Marsac put more bruises on the man’s flesh. 

"You'd go easy on this worthless rodent?"

"Have you ever seen what a cracked rib will do to a pair of lungs?” she asked acidly, her temper already at its limit. “I have. You’ll find he'll be rather at a lose for words if you continue.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

Maracas had not meant the question seriously, but Aramis nonetheless hopped off her perch and shoved him aside as she approached the soldier. The man's face, though he tried to hide it behind bluster, was one of terrified defeat, and he was struggling to breath through his battered ribs. He made to spit in her face, but Aramis slid her hand over his mouth before he could manage the energy for it. 

“Recognize that your best chance of freedom rests with me and all I want are answers,” she told him, keeping her voice light and kind. “I don’t want your blood, and I don’t want your pain. Only tell me of Savoy.” Marsac may have shown more aggression than she favored, but it gave her an opening for one of her favorite tactics. 

The soldier stared out at her over her hand, the dilemma and desperation warring across his eyes. She let her sincerity reflect back. She did not want to hurt this man. She only wanted answers. She needed her face to show that to him, so she repeated the thought over and over to herself. 

When she finally removed her hand, answers were what she was rewarded with. She should have been happy with that, but all she could feel was the cold dread she carried growing larger. 

*

Athos strove not to feel self-conscious in only her corset and chemise as she took her place across from the duke. Much as she loathed to part with it, the protection that Thomas’ jacket offered defied the nature of the duel, and the loose material of her shirt would only limit her movements when speed would be everything against an opponent twice her size. 

“No fear,” Porthos told her with a wink. Athos rolled her eyes at her sister’s sense of humor. 

She tugged her gloves on as she took her place on the far side of the room. The duke paced back in forth before her, agitated and emotional in a way that could be beneficial to her. 

"He who draws first blood is the winner?" the duke suggested dismissively. "Or she?" Athos stared back at him without a word. Cocky was fine, she thought. She lost count of the number of cocky men she had run her sword through over the years. 

As they circled one another, Athos watched the duke’s body. She once overheard an instructor tell Thomas that a man’s intentions could be read in his eyes. Her father had dismissed the man within the hour over that. It was that kind of ridiculous, romantic foolishness that got good men killed quick, he insisted. And once Athos experienced the world, she saw what her father meant. Some of the most dangerous fighters she encountered had faces carved from stone, but she could still see their thoughts in the way a shoulder would shift to thrust, or a torso would twist to lunge. In the way a pair feet would brace for an expected blow or a grip would shift on the hilt of a sword. Reading a man’s eyes never was a strong suit for Athos, but a man’s body gave away everything to her.

So she read the Duke of Savoy’s body, and waited for her moment. He was an impulsive fighter, quick on his feet and built like a bull. She avoided meeting him head-on, which would only service to give him the leverage to overwhelm her and put her down. Instead she kept them both moving, back and forth across the marbled chamber floors. With every sidestep and faint, she watched his temper building in his angry thrusts and guttural yells.

Athos saw the blow coming perhaps a few seconds before the Duke cocked his arm back and lashed out, striking her hard across the cheek and nose over the cross of their blades. She knew how to take a hit so it did not take her off her feet, but she could feel blood in her mouth and it was suddenly much harder to breath. She threw courtesy to the wind, disengaged their blades, and kicked him in the stomach quicker than lightening. She liked to think he would have her boot print outlined in bruises across his skin for weeks to come as he fell away from her. 

There was an uproar around her as she stumbled back, and when she wiped her glove over her nose it came away bloody. More blood splattered across the marble floor as she spat to clear her mouth. She could already feel her face swelling. 

“Monsieur!” Tréville roared, even as he planted one hand on Porthos’ shoulder to restrain her. The duke did not answer. Bent over at the waist, he was too preoccupied by trying to catch his breath to say anything. “Remember your honor!” 

Athos did not think that to be a possibility anymore. The duke snarled wordlessly, but he was wincing as he straightened. She met his gaze head-on with her chin held high, heedless of what she may look like. Let him see that his rash thinking had not bought him her submission, but rather her fury. 

"You question my honor!" the duke wheezed at Tréville, twitching the point of his rapier in Athos' direction. "A less honorable man would consider that first blood." 

Athos was comfortable with snap decisions. She frequently made them in the field, and they kept her sisters and her alive as a consequence. So she felt no hesitation in her next decision, made from one step forward to the next. 

The duke was still breathless from her kick and she put herself inside his defense before he realized they were continuing the duel. She used his surprise to her advantage, shoving him further off balance and not letting him regain any momentum against her.

The blows she landed were not meant to draw blood. This farce would end when she deemed everyone's lesson learned. 

She cornered him at the dais of the king’s throne, and he stumbled across it. Fallen at the feet of her king, she kept him pinned there with her sword tip for a few long heartbeats. She wanted him to remember this until the end of his days. 

“Athos,” Tréville warned, his voice rising above the pounding in her ears. 

She blinked, recalling herself, and delivered a quick, almost insolent cut to the skin in the space where his shirt fell away to reveal his skin. 

Tréville looked frustrated, but Athos thought she had shown a great deal of restraint. The duke was walking away in one piece. Porthos, by comparison, laughed delightedly as she pulled Athos to her. 

“Well done,” she praised as she tilted Athos face this way and that. She could feel the blood running down her chin and winced at Porthos’ probing. “I'd of taken his bloody head off.”

“Can you breath?” was the first question Tréville asked her when he stalked over. She nodded, but stopped when the motion caused pain to flare around her face. Tréville handed her his handkerchief, and Porthos made sure she kept it against her nose until the worst of the bleeding passed. 

“Now give it back,” he ordered. “I'll need it when I explain why I allowed one of my Musketeers to embarrass an honored royal guest.” He shot her a look. “I did warn you to keep your temper, Athos.” 

Athos apologized, but she could not say she was especially sorry to put the presumptuous duke on his back. Something about him raised her defenses, though she could not put her finger on what. 

*

It was a simple thing for Aramis to slip into Tréville's office while he was away at the palace. He rarely kept the lock on his door engaged since any who desired to see him would first be required to wade through the horde of over eager Musketeers on the floor below. It was an excellent deterrent against thieves, but not so much against a familiar face with soft foot steps. 

She worked through the room slowly, sure to place everything back to where she found it when she finished. She could not believe she was ransacking her captain’s office, however the tight, numbing feeling in her chest was beginning to push her to desperation. Evidence was stacking up against Tréville, and she was no longer sure if she was looking to exonerate or damn him. Or what she would do if she found answers. 

Their captain had given her sisters and her the freedom to be who God meant them to be, but that did not grant him the right to be caviler with their lives in return. Aramis survived to the bloody dawn on a combination of luck and skill, but in the dark recess of her mind she constantly saw Porthos or Athos dead in the snow in her place. She wondered if a single different decision of her part would have meant her own death, and it was petrifying to imagine her sisters struggling without her there to help them. 

So she ignored the beseeching voice calling for her to stop and searched file after file. The further along she went, the more concerned she became as she could not find a single note or memo pertaining to Savoy. 

Her hopes buoyed for a moment when she came across a locked drawer deep in Tréville's cabinet. However, after she picked the lock it revealed nothing past a few tombs on noble lineage and files on missions into Huguenot territories with inquiries into the affairs of the Duke of Orléans. Nothing of Savoy. No rosters, so scheduled exercises, no objectives. It was as if their captain tried to wipe the mission out of existence. 

Closing the drawer with a quiet slide and flicking the lock back in place, Aramis fought to keep her breath even. Tréville kept a record of everything the regiment did, from grocery receipts to mission debriefs. To find nothing at all about their mission to Savoy was unnerving. It also spoke louder of his guilt than any missive condemning his actions. 

Aramis wavered, feeling lost in her uncertainty. Tréville told her it had been Spanish insurgents trying to reignite hostilities with France who attacked them in Savoy and for years she accepted that. As the only survivor of the massacre she never desired to pursue his explanation further. But she needed answers, and the path to getting them was becoming more fraught with every turn. 

*

The servants of the palace, at long last used to their queen’s polite but insistent ways, stayed out of her path as she found the small sitting room Athos and Porthos retreated into. The silk of Anne's skirts rustled in announcement as she entered, pausing only to dismiss her ladies in waiting by the door. Across the room, Porthos glanced up from where she was inspecting Athos' battered face and bobbed a quick bow to her. Anne's breath caught at the damage she saw. She tugged at a bellpull in the corner before sweeping toward them.

"Are you alright?" she asked Athos as calmly as she could. She was not such a stranger to violence that she shied away from blood, but she did not believe she would ever be comfortable with it. 

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Athos replied, however her voice was nasally and her words sounded slow out of her mouth. Porthos snorted ungracefully and prodded Athos into leaning forward while her nose still bled. 

“Fetch my physician,” Anne ordered the servant who answered her call, watching with concern as Porthos wiped a damp cloth across Athos’ bloody face. The water in the basin beside her was already tinted pink. 

“It’s fine-,” Athos tried. 

“Earned yourself a nice pair of black eyes,” Porthos interrupted cheerfully, running her thumbs down the sides of Athos’ nose with gentle care. “Don’t think your nose is broken, though. Still got all your teeth?” 

“Aye,” Athos muttered, simmering in annoyance and shame in equal measure. Anne stood at Porthos' side, studying the uneven swelling blossoming across Athos' face. 

"Not to worry, Ma’am," Porthos assured her. "If she ain't passed out yet, chances are she won't.” Athos kicked her shins in reply, but only half-heartedly. 

When the physician arrived, he was accompanied by another. Anne worked to keep the surprise from her face as Marie Christine, Duchess of Savoy, stood before her in all her enviously easy grace. The woman stared back at her with thinly veiled defiance.

The Parisian court was steeped in generations of tradition and formality. No matter their rank, no noble could accost her without introduction and formal presentation. However they were not in court, and Marie Christine wore the look of one determined to reach her goal. But Anne was not without her own power. The title of Queen was cumbersome and tangled, but it did allow her some leniency. She she smiled politely at the duchess then promptly turned away from her. If the woman wanted to present herself without the proper formalities while Anne was distracted by other matters, she would hold herself until Anne decided to begin their game. The woman did not look pleased at being made to wait, but Anne found it amusing how closely her expression mirrored Louis’ when he was confronted with annoyances he could not order out of his way. 

She waved her physician toward Athos, who shot him a distrustful look when he approached. 

“Don’t fight me on this, Athos,” Anne ordered, leaving no room for argument. Victor Amadeus was build like a mountain, and she would be severely displeased if his brutality left any lingering affects on Athos. 

She took a moment to observe Porthos teasing Athos while the physician cautiously examined her face. She was still concerned about the amount of blood covering Athos’ face and the stained rag in Porthos’ hand, however the jovial air between them gave her comfort that the situation was not life threatening. Satisfied everything was in hand, Anne turned back to Marie Christine, who stood by the door in a quiet boil. 

She nodded her assent, which was all the signal Marie Christine needed sash came forward. Anne offered her a seat at the far side of the room where a pair of chairs and a small reading table were stationed. 

“I was under the impression those three were part of my brother's Musketeers,” Marie Christine observed as she settled her skirts around her. “Are they yours instead?”

To any other, Anne would have deflected the entire conversation. It was known that she favored the ladies of the Musketeers, but she could keep them better secured if she used that favor lightly. They already earned the disapproval of the cardinal, but any she openly sponsored would find themselves at the mercy of the brutal French court. 

However, Marie Christine was not part of the French court and sat in a unique position all her own. When Anne first came to her husband’s court, she had been quick to learn that his three sisters lived to outshine one other. They were raised to believe only one of them could be the most beautiful, the most adored, and the only jewel of the French court. The one true Madame Royale. With her sisters both married to anointed kings, Marie Christine was sensitive to the fact that she was a simple Sovereign Duchess by comparison. At first, Anne thought it to be pride and hubris that drove the other woman, but over time she found Marie Christine to be by far the most intelligent child of Henry IV. Their mother must have seen it as well, since the Duchess of Savoy was the most treacherous position she placed any of her children in. Torn between two great powers, Savoy rested on the edge of a perilous sword. 

And her husband’s actions were quickly forcing the sword to a point. There was a time for deception and misdirection, and a time for communication. Anne’s upbringing centered around understanding that her place as queen was to know when that time had arrived. 

“Not for lack of trying,” she settled on, undercutting her honesty with a sweet smile. Idle daydreams of her own Queen’s Guard were as far as she dared imagine. She had many enemies in court who looked upon a foreign queen from a hostile family with disdain, and she was quick to learned the value of discretion that she had not needed in Spain. 

However, she knew she would never be able to rein in the ladies of the Musketeers. All three of them enjoyed adventuring and freedom far too much. They would only see permanent service to her as another cage to escape from. So she utilized them as best she could and made it clear to Tréville the ladies were to come to her if he was ever required to reassess their commissions. Anne would never be able to wield a sword or venture forth unopposed, so she would endlessly encourage any woman who could. If doing so happened to draw women of that calibre into her circle by coincidence, she saw no large flaw with that. 

“Do you trust them?” Marie Christine was not so unaware of herself that she let her nerves show, but Anne could see she was more deliberate in her movements, more careful of her words. She held herself under strict control so as to not reveal anything. There was more to her question than curiosity about her unusual Musketeers. 

“I’ve trusted them with my life on numerous occasions,” she explained. “And more importantly, with my husband’s.”

Marie Christine folded her hands into her lap, and her face hardened into something all together fierce and commanding. 

“I have need of them." 

*

After over a week of watching Aramis' odd friend, d'Artagnan was about to burst with curiosity. He was not a constant guard, but occasionally during the past week, Aramis came to him and asked him away to monitor the sad, angry man. He chafed under the monotonous, dull task, but Aramis was becoming further stressed and withdrawn with each passing day and he felt he should do anything he could do to help. Under her direction, he did not speak much with Marsac, but that seemed to suit the man right down to the ground. Mostly, Marsac slept. d'Artagnan had to wonder what haunted him so that he thrashed and cried out in his dreams. 

“What’s all this about?” he asked Aramis once she first pulled him away. 

“It’s not Musketeer business,” she replied. d’Artagnan raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her.

“It’s not,” she insisted. “It may involve the regiment around the edges but this is something I need to piece it all together. It doesn’t involve anyone else.” 

“Even Athos and Porthos?” The question struck a nerve with Aramis, if her face was anything to go off of. 

“This isn’t a mission,” she reiterated. “Nor does it concern them. I asked for your help because I need someone I can trust to watch Marsac while I confirm information he’s given me. That’s all.”

“It doesn’t feel like it’s that simple.” d’Artagnan could not help but remember Calais, and Aramis’ tendency to follow her own path when she thought it was in her loved ones best interests. 

“I swear to you, if it comes to it I’ll talk to the others but I’m only trying to satisfy my own curiosity."

d’Artagnan wanted to push for more, but Aramis retreated into herself in stark contrast to her usual persona, and that worried him. She made it clear d’Artagnan should not allow Marsac out of his sight, but past that did not readily answer any of his questions. d’Artagnan was beginning to think most of the Musketeers enjoyed being mysterious on purpose. 

But Aramis asked him, and for all she kept her cards close to her chest he did not believe she would put him in danger without telling him. So he kept Marsac pinned under his gaze and waited. 

Daylight began to creep into the day when d’Artagnan dragged himself into his clothes and followed his nose downstairs. The smell of fresh bread was thick in the air, and he found Constance in her kitchen, busy placing wrapped bundles into a small basket. d’Artagnan’s tired brain offered more than a few thoughts of how beautiful she looked in the early morning light. Her copper curls shined in the pale light filtering in from the windows. 

“What’s all this?” he asked instead. His voice was rough from sleep, and Constance started at the sound of it. 

“Don’t scare me,” she scolded lightly, and d’Artagnan marveled at her ability to look fierce and adorable simultaneously. "You’re going to see Aramis’ friend again today, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call them friends,” d’Artagnan replied. From all the interactions he witnessed between them, he was confident that Aramis nearly despised Marsac. 

“Nonetheless,” Constance dismissed. “If I know anything about Aramis when she gets like this, it’s that she’s completely forgotten to eat. I can leave this with you for her.” She hefted the basket off the counter and balanced it in the crook of her arm and looked at d’Artagnan expectedly. 

“I can take it for you,” he offered, reaching out to take the woven handle. Constance slapped his hand away with a practiced gesture. 

“And deprive me of a chance to get away from my paperwork? Hush yourself.” 

“Yes ma’am,” he replied. Setting further arguments aside, he opened the door for her as they wondered out into the crisp morning air. 

The small room Aramis had Marsac in was situated above an apothecary tucked away along the bank of the Seine, and the rich smell of saffron and cloves followed him up the narrow steps. Constance took a few deep breaths with a thoughtful expression on her face while he fussed with the latch.

“I wonder if he has honey,” she commented as d’Artagnan unlocked the door. 

“What?” he asked absentmindedly, sparing an eye toward the bed. Marsac was asleep yet again, sprawled out across the sheets still fully clothed. The air had a stale tint to it and he wrinkled his nose at the undercurrent of alcohol he could detect. 

“The apothecary,” Constance explained. Marsac twitched against the sheets at the sound of her voice. “The markets haven’t stocked honey for months, but it would go well with the bread we brought.” She shot him a sly glance through her eyelashes. “It would be divine if you went and asked for me.” 

“Would it?” d’Artagnan replied with skepticism even as he started back to the door. The stunning smile she sent him made the short errand worth it. 

d’Artagnan was gone for only a small window of time. Down to the store and back. The trip took him a handful of minutes at most. But he supposed a few short minutes were all disasters needed. 

When he returned to the upstairs room, tiny honey pot in hand, he tensed as he took in the table overturned with its contents scattered across the floor. Constance was in the middle of it all, staring down at her shaking hands as if she did not believe her own eyes. The bed pushed against the wall was a mess of tangled sheets, and Marsac no where to be seen. 

“What happened?” he demanded immediately, setting the pot on a nearby window sill and crossing the room in two long strides. Constance’s vacant face jerked up at the sound of his voice, and it was only then that d’Artagnan noticed a thin, sharp kitchen knife in her hand. Across the blade was a thin coating of blood. 

“Is that yours?” he asked, slowly reaching out to take the knife from her. Constance had a loose grip on it, and did not seem aware that she was still wielding it. 

“I…I brought it with me for the bread,” she replied in a shaking voice. d’Artagnan set the blade aside and took her hands in his, letting his own warmth seep into her cool skin. 

“Where’s Marsac?” he tried in a gentler tone, hoping to pull her back to him from wherever it was she wondered. 

“He woke up,” Constance muttered. The thought made her more coherent, but her shaking was getting worse. “I didn’t hear him until he was behind me. I-he started to touch me. He won’t stop. I think I nearly took his nose off.” 

His grip on Constance’s hands was the only thing that kept him from running from the room and hunting down Marsac like an animal. He could feel every nerve straining to do so. But her fingernails were pressed against his skin like claws and she was staring at him as if he was the center of her rapidly disintegrating world. 

"I don’t think he knew where he was,” she admitted quietly. “He looked…confused, when I lashed out at him.”

“I couldn’t care less about him, what about you?” d’Artagnan asked. Constance was already looking better than she had when he first found her, but he was reluctant to let her go just yet. Her hands still shook. 

“I’m fine,” she replied, but he was unconvinced. “He’s gone now, though I don’t know where. Aramis’ll-,” suddenly she sunk her nails deep into his flesh and her eyes widened in realization. “You can’t tell the others,” she demanded of him. “Aramis, Porthos, Athos, none of them."

“What?” d’Artagnan was already concocting plans on how to best phrase the events to his sisters to ensure that they killed Marsac where he stood by the end of his tale. 

“They can’t know,” she whispered, looking more terrified than she had before. d’Artagnan struggled with that. “I won’t have them thinking I’m weak. Not again.”

“What are you-,"

“Promise me!” Constance stressed, her eyes pleading with him. d’Artagnan felt his resistance, already crumbling in her presence, bleed away at her pleas. He was begining to realize he would never be able to deny this woman anything. 

“Alright,” he agreed quietly, before he released her hands and began collecting the contents of her scattered basket. They would need to leave before Aramis returned from her wondering if they did not wish to be caught. 

Constance picked at her nail beds for the entire journey, and when they arrived at her doorstep d’Artagnan was a little surprised her fingertips were not bleeding. When she spoke again, her voice was cracked and uncertain. 

“If I asked you to teach me…how to use that,” she asked, sweeping her hand at his holster belt to encompass everything hanging from it. 

“Are you sure I’m the best teacher for you?” he could not help but ask. His sisters could better relate to her struggles. Athos was a better swordsmith, Porthos a better brawler, Aramis a better shot. He could not hope to instill the knowledge they could on Constance. 

“What part of ‘I don’t want them to know’ are you struggling with?” she snapped, her anger coming out like flags on a serpent. 

“They don’t like secrets being kept from them.” He was still not sure how he was going to hid this as it was. Aramis could read him better than a Bible, even in her present distracted state. 

“Then they shouldn’t keep them from us,” Constance replied. “They can’t throw stones at that particular sinner.” 

d’Artagnan could not help but see her point. Calais and Marsac were enough proof of that. When he finally agreed to her request, he sent a pray heavenward that this would not devastate him. 

* 

Tréville despised playing shadow games, but it was exactly where he found himself. Richelieu, still touchy about the duel between Athos and Duke Amadeus, was ruthless while explaining their situation. If anyone outside the king and his councilors discovered that twenty Musketeer lives had been sacrificed for the apprehension of a Habsburg spy in Savoy’s court, the fallout for them all would be devastating. War with Savoy, outrage from his troops, and dozens of power-hungry nobles waiting to jump at their chance for royal power where just waiting to be hurled at him, Richelieu pointed out as his burning eyes locked onto him. Damn the man and his twisted mind. 

Tréville made his decisions, and now he was stuck in a sticky web he saw no escape from. For a while, he thought he could make it through the entire affair without gaining too many scars, but once he found Aramis tucked away behind a pillar twice her size and clearly eavesdropping on him, he thought that to be pure fantasy. She stared at him without guilt or guile, with dark circles under her eyes and barely concealed pain in her face. He had not seen her look so miserable in five years. 

He also felt a rising frustration at his discovery of her spying on him. He encouraged all his ladies to dig deeper and ignore convention, but he was their captain. He was not the one they were allowed to plot against. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he seethed once he sent Richelieu away. “This is unacceptable behavior, even you should understand that.” 

“Did you give away our location in Savoy?” Aramis asked rather than answer him. Her question stilled the blood in Tréville’s veins. She was so close to discovering the truth, he realized with chilling dread. 

“You know what happened,” he replied in his most commanding tone. He would not be questioned like a thief by his own Musketeer. “Spanish soldiers found the camp and attacked you. That is all. You think you’re entitled to further explanation, but this isn’t your affair."

“I thought that,” Aramis replied, her blank eyes not leaving his. Tréville noticed how many mannerisms she was (perhaps unconsciously) imitating from Athos. Her normally animated face was as still as a grave when she spoke. “But that’s not true, is it?”

“I don’t know what brought this on—,”

“Because Marsac might be a scoundrel but he also might not be wrong—,”

“Marsac? What’s he have to do with any of this?”

“And now I’m starting to see it all. We were attacked by soldiers from Savoy, not Spain. Soldiers who found us because you told them we were there. I just don’t understand why.” 

“You will stop this,” Tréville thundered. “I grant you license to speak and question me beyond what a good soldier should, but do not think for one moment my tolerance is limitless, Aramis.” 

“Are you responsible for the deaths of twenty Musketeers?” was her calm reply. 

“Savoy saved you,” he hissed. “Yet you dare question me of it?” Part of his conscious cringed at the underhanded tactic, but he could not disregard the truth of it. Savoy turned the men of the Musketeers towards his ladies instead of away from them. Savoy gave them acceptance and camaraderie. Savoy forged them into true Musketeers instead of renegade outcasts. She had no right to question that acceptance after years of peace. 

Hurt flashed across Aramis’ lovely, tired face and it twisted at Tréville’s heat. But she did not back down. 

“Did you tell the duke of Savoy and his men where we were that night?”

She would not let this go. She never let go when she was sure of something. Tréville was sure she could chase the sun over the horizon had she reason enough too. Another time, he would admire her tenacity and vigor, as it delivered him results on countless missions. This time, he cursed it to the heavens. 

“Yes,” he admitted to her, watching as the little light left in her face shuttered away. All his fears of loss played out in front of him as she took a step back and gave him the sharp smile she often directed at the cardinal. 

“That’s all I wanted to know,” she told him as she walked away. 

*

Porthos decided she quite liked the Duchess of Savoy. As they slipped through the halls of the secret prison, she issued abrupt orders when needed and kept silent and out of the way while Porthos and Athos worked. Behind her trailed the beggar Porthos found outside the palace. A handful of sous and a few half-remembered code phrases from her childhood convinced him to help, and he silently trailed after them as they worked to outrace the approaching duke. 

Cluzet looked much like what Porthos imaged him to be: a white haired, bespectacled man shriveled with age. She could almost smell the righteousness bleeding off of him. He began screeching when he saw the duchess, who silenced him with a swift blow to his stomach. Biting back an impressed smile, Porthos let herself imagine a life where those she answered to practiced the duchess' type of directness. It was a pleasant thought. She grabbed the old man around the scruff of his shabby robes and hauled him out of the cell as Athos gave quick instructions to their beggar. 

The duchess hovered at her side while Porthos tucked herself and Cluzet behind the hallway corner, and snatched his glasses off his nose once she was sure they were well hidden. Porthos held her breath and waited. 

She heard the cardinal argue with the duke, and hugged the wall tighter as iron keys rattled against the door. Cluzet fought against her, but five years of imprisonment and malnutrition left him with weak. She tightened her hold on him until his bones ground together, and he quickly stilled within her grip.

“Good boy,” she praised quietly, muffling the man’s feeble cries. Athos crouched beside her, a scarf pulled up over the bridge of her nose to hide the distinct bruises across her face. In the shadows across the way, the duchess was tense as she listened to her husband’s booming voice. 

They stayed in their places until the faintest sounds of footfalls finally fell away. It was with a universal sigh of relief that they pushed Cluzet back into his cell and slammed the door on him, and hopefully on Savoy. Porthos dropped a handful of coins into their beggar’s hands, and his eyes widened when he realized he was holding twice the amount they agreed on. 

“Go to the Musketeer garrison an' ask for Serge,” she told him. “Tell ‘em Porthos sent you. They’ll get'cha a good meal and some warm clothes to take away.” She still remembered how it felt to be hungry and cold for months at a time and winter was on the way. He would not be the first stray she sent to Serge’s kitchen, and their grumpy cook was kind enough to never turn them away. 

Once the beggar disappeared, Porthos was surprised to find the duchess beside her, the lady's eyes closed and her regal face tilted up to the sun as if in prayer. 

“Your grace?” Porthos asked, hoping she choose the correct title. She never managed to keep track of the endless intricacies required in addressing the nobility. She left that to Athos and Aramis. The other woman opened her eyes and turned her gaze up to Porthos. 

“I love my husband,” The duchess felt compelled to say. “Very much." Porthos shrugged. From her experience, the duchess was in the minority of noble women. Considering the lengths she was going to to keep her husband unaware of her activities, Porthos supposed it to be true. 

“What a strange phenomena,” Athos commented in a dry voice, and Porthos grinned. For all her sister’s propriety, she was the first among them to poke the sleeping bear that was a noble’s pride. It was probably for the best her sister still wore her scarf around her face, since it concealed the scornful look Porthos knew was there. To her credit, the duchess looked amused as well.

“It is a surprise, is it not?” the duchess replied, taking Athos’ comment in stride. She paused, eying Porthos up in curious speculation. 

“Where did that come from?” the duchess asked, reaching up to tap her fingertip against the white scar that slid through Porthos’ forehead, eyebrow and down her cheek. Porthos fought not to jerk away from the touch, taken aback by the duchess’ casual familiarity. People rarely touched her, her sisters and d’Artagnan aside. But the duchess’ face was open and interested, and Porthos loved to tell her stories.

“Got into a fight with a man who liked knives an' cheap shots,” she explained. “He drew on me after I knocked a couple of his teeth out." 

“What were you fighting about?” 

“Made aspirations on my character,” Porthos replied, smiling slightly at the memory. “I don't take kindly to that. He didn’t take kindly to bleedin'.” It had been a foolish brawl mere weeks after she had fled the Cours de Miracles, when she had been angry and reckless and alone. If she had known half of what she knew now back then, he would never have gotten close enough to her to draw blood, let alone leave a scar. 

“What happened?” The duchess appeared enraptured by her story, hanging off her words with a starved type of interest. Porthos recounted their duel, but made sure to edit out the more graphic aspects of the tale. (She supposed Athos would not be thrilled having to explain to Tréville how they managed to offend both the Duke and his wife in one day.) Both of them had made no claims of sobriety and lewd insults had flown faster than their fists. She remembered being surprised when he drew a knife on her, and only quick thinking and his off-kilter aim saved her eye. She was sure to empty his purse for the inconvenience after she put him down. 

The duchess sighed aloud when she finished, a rueful smile on her lips. “How I wish I could vanquish my enemies so simply. Alas, I fear the constraints of my skirts would hinder such a desire.” She swished from side to side, and heavy fabric flared out around her to emphasis of her point.

“Athos ’s a gown like that, your grace,” Porthos replied, eying the wide fan of silks. “Doesn’t hinder her much, from what I’ve seen.” 

“Do you?” the duchess asked, turning on a surprised Athos with intent. “Tell me, do you find it more convenient to adapt your style to compensate for the weight of a gown? How do you still hold to your form with all the petticoats? My husband told me you were rather skilled, did you learn better in the French style or the Italian? Could recommend a tutor who would not balk to teach me?"

Athos looked stunned to stillness at the garage of questions. Smiling Porthos began herding them both back toward the palace, more than content to leave her quiet sister to the duchess’ relentlessness. 

*

Her bolt hole was in shambles. Aramis nudged her booted toe against the broken remains of the overturned table, surveying it all with a weary eye. Walking the length of the room, she became even more concerned when she found thin trials of blood splattered across the floor. Marsac was no where in sight. 

Suspicion led her to the closest tavern some way off from the apothecary. She stuck her head inside, and quick glance revealed a familiar figure tucked in the corner. When she swooped down him, she was relieved to find him sober. She witnessed first hand the kind of havoc spirits wreaked on Athos, who was normally one of the calmest people Aramis knew. She had no desire to see that ten times worse in Marsac. 

He fought her grip, but he was off balance and she used the leverage that granted her to usher him into the alley behind the tavern. 

“Why did you let them in!” he growled at her, eyes wild. 

“Let who in?” she tried. “Let d’Artagnan?” She asked her little brother to check in on Marsac earlier that day, but it was hardly the first time. Marsac ignored her questions and continued to pace in front of her, a tiger tormented by the bars of his cell. 

“Where have you been?” he snarled instead. Aramis resisted the urge to remind him she did not answer to him. There were bigger things at stake than silly quibbles.

“I wanted to ask Tréville what he knew,” she told him. “I didn’t find anything in his office.” 

Marsac froze in his pacing, his face a sudden array of desperate hope. 

“You spoke with Tréville?”

“Aye.”

“Did he confess?” He was desperate for her words. But Aramis was realizing that, as Marsac rose higher and higher in his anxious race for answers, she was becoming more detached with each breath. She no longer felt the clawing need to demand answers, only a chilled realization of the truth laid out before her. 

“Aye,” she repeated quietly.

“I know it!” Marsac cawed. "He’s never been able to deny a pretty face. God knows you’re proof of that. Now, we have to make sure he’s punished.”

Aramis stared at him for a long moment, and her lack of reaction brought Marsac down from his manic energy. 

“Why aren’t you happy? You finally proved yourself."

“I found the answers I wanted,” she told him, blunt from indifference. She was so tired, and the chill seemed to have settled permanently into her bones. “We’re done.” 

“You-you can’t be done.” Her apathy startled Marsac. "Tréville left us to die!”

“That’s true,” Aramis acknowledged. “But it’s over now. And you have no right to demand anything else.” Tréville was still their captain. She was still an outcast and an oddity. Marsac was still a deserter. She was wise enough to know that the truth would not change any of that. All the truth did was give her clarity. What was to happen next was not Marsac’s decision to make, but rather one she and her sisters would discuss. To stay or to go. She was already fretting over the idea of leaving a place of such hard-won acceptance, how she could ask that of Athos and Porthos without breaking their hearts? They needed that acceptance as much as she did... 

She supposed she should have seen the blow coming after that. Marsac possessed a strong temper and he was not thinking rationally, she saw in retrospect. It still caught her by surprise, as tied up as she was in her own thoughts. 

She hit the wall with enough force to bounce off it, her forehead colliding with the cold stone hard enough to send dark spots across her vision. She reached for her pistol, ready to end Marsac, but a sharp pain bit into the back of her skull, and her world went dark. 

*

The rain roused her. It was cool against her skin, dragging her back to the realm of the living with a taunting touch. Aramis blinked rapidly to bring her vision into focus, and she took careful stock of herself. Pushing her palms into the gritty, quickly dampening dirt below her, she levered herself up and tried to ignore the pounding in her skull. Her breath was short in her lungs and everything spun around her. 

She needed to move. 

The rain caused her hair to flatten and stick to her skin, but there was an uncomfortable wetness trickled down her face that felt wrong. Her palms were covered in grim, so she touched the back of her hand to the place where her forehead met her hairline. She was unsurprised to see blood when she pulled back to inspect it. Marsac’s fury was not a gentle thing.

A thought stopped her heart, and she scrambled to check her holsters and sheathes amongst her skirts, fighting with material that was rapidly becoming soaked. The relief she felt at finding all her weapons where they should be made her hands shake. She would never have forgiven herself had she allowed Marsac to completely disarm her. 

Aramis pushed at her body until she was able to rest her back against the wall and catch her breath. Where would Marsac go? He had no friends in Paris, no way to maneuver without her. He had no options. 

Dread clawed deep as it occurred to her what men with no options were capable of. Fighting back the pain and exhaustion, she struggled to her feet and forced her limbs to move. 

The garrison was quiet save for the sound of rain pattering against the roof when she stumbled through the main doors, so it was simple work to follow the raised voices to the armory. Her legs were shaky and her lungs burned from the excursion she imposed on them, but she urged herself on until she found them. Leaning against the threshold of the armory, she saw Marsac screaming at Tréville, waving his pistol around in wild abandon. Her captain did not look stunned, but rather was watching Marsac with sad, resigned eyes. 

She pulled her own pistol on him without a second thought, calling his attention to her instead. He was still of sound enough mind to draw on her as well, and positioned as he was with his back to a corner he was able to lock them both in his sights. Tréville made no move to arm himself during Marsac’s distraction, and Aramis tried not to be annoyed at that. Tréville could be over honorable when the mood struck him. 

“Aramis,” Marsac almost cried her name. It sounded weak and feeble to Aramis’ ears, and in that moment she realized how tired she was of weakness. Weakness that had haunted her since her sisters dragged her out of the forests of Savoy, and in Marsac she saw all the burdens she carried because of it. She would not carry them anymore. 

“Put your weapon down and step back,” she ordered, trying to keep herself as calm as possible despite her rage. Marsac was balancing on the edge of oblivion, and her anger could easily push him over. She could not wipe away the rain water streaking down her hair and face without giving Marsac an opportunity to move, so she instead glared at him through her damp eyelashes. 

“No!” he rebelled after a stunned moment. “No. He deserves this! He left us to die and he has to answer for it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Aramis saw Tréville straighten his back against the accusations as if he were already before the firing squad. He said nothing to refute Marsac. 

“This isn’t the way to do this—,” she tried.

“It is! Twenty of our friends are dead because of him!”

There that was again. Aramis could not help but snarl, her fury rushing to seep through the cracks Savoy caused in her. The triangle between them seemed to ring at the spike of tension, and she gripped the hilt of her pistol with white-knuckled fingers to keep from shaking. 

“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” she fought to push the words past her lips. Marsac turned hurt eyes on her, but she met them full-on with her own. “All I remember on that mission were dogs and scoundrels.” 

“You don’t—,” 

“You keep saying,” she growled, letting all the stress and anger and pain she felt bubble forth. “Our friends died. But I didn’t have friends in that mission. I had twenty-one men who hated the ground I walked on. Twenty-one dogs who couldn’t stop says a good bedding would teach me respect. I had twenty-one swords waiting to stab me in the back the moment the captain wasn’t watching. I had three weeks of sleepless nights because I knew I couldn’t rest around them and hope to wake up safely. Three weeks of feeling more alone and terrified than I had in years because my sisters weren’t behind me to protect me. I had countless prayers sent to God that they weren’t there, because they would only be treated worst than I was.” 

And she knew they would have been. The other Musketeers had been cruel, but Aramis knew how to deal with cruel men. They endlessly invaded her space, tugged at her hair and her skirts, made lewd comments about her body, and tried to take her weapons from her more than once. Athos, who despised being touched by most people and preferred to keep to herself, would have been a deer among wolves. She would not have understood that she needed to play them off one another, because that was the only way to survive when she was so outnumbered. Porthos may very well had ended up face down in a ditch with her throat slit. She was everything those men believed to be inferior and worthless, and Aramis still had nightmares about what they could have done to her had they been given the chance. Her sister had enough scars, and Aramis bemoaned each one she had not been able to prevent. Those men died and her sisters lived. If God only showed his favor once in a lifetime, she was glad He choose to do so in Savoy. 

Tréville watched her with sad eyes. Aramis never told him how his men behaved while his back was turned. She did not think it worth dragging the memory of the dead up just to speak ill of them. He had been right. Savoy saved her, for all her salvation came at the deaths of twenty Musketeers. 

Marsac looked devastated and lost, as if the ground beneath his feet was no longer solid. Yet he still had sharp knives in his artillery, and he knew enough of her weak points to plant them deep. 

“You didn’t belong there,” he whispered. “None of you did. It’s not your place.”

Aramis resisted shooting him for his words once. She felt no such restraint a second time. However even as she squeezed the trigger she knew her shot would go wide; the crack from her pistol jolted all three of them into action and forced her aim astray. 

Marsac fired both his pistols at once as he moved forward, rushing towards Tréville. Aramis spun low to avoid another attack, causing her skirts to flare and give her easy access to her spare holster. As she circled around and rose in one fluid motion, she was brought to Marsac’s original vantage point. With him straight before her, she did not think twice so as to not doubt her aim and squeezed the trigger. 

*

Tréville wasted no time in shoving Aramis out of the armory while Marsac’s corpse bled out on the cold floor. 

“Go,” he ordered. “Tell no one you were here and stay far away until I say.” 

It did not occur to her until later that he chased her away to spare the questions that would come with the discovery of Marsac’s return. So that she would not be questioned as a traitor. 

He had Marsac placed quietly in his grave in mere hours, heedless of the heavy clouds that continued to rise in the sky. Aramis did not inspect her feelings on his decision too closely. For all the last five years had been a blessing, she still imagined she and her sisters would meet their ends in forgotten fields far from such commonly trekked earth. She supposed they would eventually be laid to rest in the graveyard as well, but the thought did not appeal as she supposed it should.

She visited only after the gravediggers had come and gone, well paid for their diligence and silence by Tréville’s coin. The rains showed no sign of slowing, and the muddy ground turned to slush under her boots. There was no marker to adore Marsac's grave, so she knelt to draw a tiny cross in the disturbed dirt. Bowing her head, she muttered a prayer that felt familiar and reassuring on her tongue, spoken dozens of times over dozens of graves. 

She heard Tréville before she saw him, his footfalls heavy in the silty mud. He came to a stop beside her, and offered his hand to help her rise once she finished.

“He didn't seem well,” Tréville commented. Aramis sent him a sideways look, taking note of her captain’s stiff shoulders and closed off face. 

“He died in the forests of Savoy,” she replied. “It just took this long for us to bury him. Had he returned to us before, it may have been different…” she trailed off, understanding that the grave at her feet could easily have been hers had her path wavered. Had Porthos not guided her through her nightmares with soft words and a strong embrace. Had Athos not listened to her mangled words with acceptance and devotion when her despair was at its worst. Had the rest of the Musketeers' disdain not turned to approval. 

It was a selfish thought, but the rise of Aramis and her sisters came at Marsac’s fall. For that alone she could not hate him. 

Tréville’s hand at her elbow drew her back to herself. 

“I hated losing him to Savoy. I hated losing all of them,” he told her, sweeping his hands out to encompass the hollowed ground around them. The pain on his face was unreserved. “Will I lose three more to that cursed place?” 

“We’re not soldiers,” Aramis reminded him, not unkindly. “Our course is not theirs. Nor our decisions.” 

“I’m well aware,” he replied with a slight smile.

“Yet you act surprised when I question you.”

“Allow an old man his astonishment,” Tréville replied. “And his secrets. You knew more than I expected, and I feared the consequences of that.”

She felt lighter despite herself at his words. She knew Tréville worried for them. He could hardly be faulted for allowing his worry to manifest in odd ways. 

“Would you have us be soldiers?” she asked. “Have us follow orders and never question you?"

“If I thought for a moment any of you were capable of that, the last six years would have turned out much differently. And not nearly as profitable. Or entertaining,” he added after a pause. 

Aramis found herself content with that. The life she had chosen was not a simple one. If this was to be the payment for it, she did not deem it too high. Mere shadows of the high nunnery walls that blockaded a lifetime of prayer and solitude was darker to her than even this. 

“Rest easy, captain,” she told him, touching his shoulder in solidarity. “I doubt you’ll find yourself without us any time soon.” 

He looked torn, and opened his mouth as if to say more, however after a moment he shook his head and tipped his hat low over his eyes against the rain. 

“Dismissed, Aramis.” 

“Aye, captain.” She turned away, and did not look back. 

Athos and Porthos were waiting for her at the cemetery gates, both of them sheltered under the thick branches of a large oak planted there. Aramis felt her face unfold into a sunny smile at the sight of them, both beautiful and annoyed and everything she ever wished for all in one. Her sister meant more than the darkness. It was a hard thing to leave the past behind, however as she went to them, she was reminded that she was no longer alone in that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get involved with weddings, they take up far too much of your time even when you're not the one getting married. Also at a cool 16K, i'm fairly sure this chapter tried to eat me
> 
>  
> 
> more research ranting because I can:  
> Sooooo, the Victor Amadeus became Duke of Savoy in late July of 1630, so pretty much a month or so before this episode was probably placed, given the comments in the opening scene (or maybe even a little before). On a more morbid note, Victor Amadeus and Marie Christine’s son Louis Amadeus, died in 1628. Their heir in 1630 was their second son, Francis Hyacinth, who would have been just over a year old. Victor Amadeus died in 1637, so Marie Christine became regent of Savoy in the name of her son after that and fought off multiple attempts to dethrone her to retain power until her death in 1663. She also had a bunch of lovers and didn’t really allow anyone to criticize her for it. She was awesome, and Victor did shit during his lifetime. 
> 
> tl; dr - Victor Amadeus is a footnote to Marie Christine's life, and she's awesomely amazing. Hope you enjoyed this part, and Porthos and the Cours de Miracles is up next!

**Author's Note:**

> So i'm going to be completely honest and say this is the biggest undertaking I've ever attempted in fandom, and i'm only mildly terrified. However, these three are still so much fun to right and SO MANY IDEAS! Bare with me as I occasionally flail and panic over all the feels.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! Émile Bonnaire and Le Fére are up next! 
> 
> /more flailing and panicking


End file.
